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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Publishers, 

BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK. 


STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE 


BY 


RICHARD    GRANT  WHITE 


EDITOR   OF   THE   RIVERSIDE   EDITION 


OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  WORKS 


THIRD   EDITION 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 


1887 


Copyright,  1885, 
BY  ALEXINA  B.  WHITE. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riversiffe  Press,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co, 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 


A  NUMBEE  of  Shakespearean  studies,  which  have 
been  published  from  time  to  time  in  periodical  form, 
are  gathered  in  this  volume.  All  of  them  have  been 
revised,  and  some  of  them  have  been  condensed  and 
emended  by  the  author ;  who  also  added  fresh  matter 
on  Shakespeare  Glossaries  and  Lexicons,  and  a  note 
on  Mr.  Walker's  "  Critical  Examination  of  the  Text." 

It  was  while  preparing  this  book  for  publication, 
that  Mr.  Grant  White  was  seized  by  the  long  and 
painful  illness  from  which  recovery  became  impossi- 
ble. His  work  upon  it  had  so  nearly  reached  com- 
pletion, however,  that  little  remained  to  be  done  be- 
yond the  customary  corrections  for  the  press.  And 
his  readers  will  remember,  should  inaccuracies  appear 
in  its  pages,  that  they  did  not  receive  these  last  finish- 
ing touches  from  the  hand  now  laid  at  rest  forever. 


CONTENTS. 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE. 

PAGU 

I.  PLATS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD 1 

II.   PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD 19 

III.  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD  .  .    38 


NARRATIVE  ANALYSIS. 

I.   THE  LADY  GRUACH'S  HUSBAND 58 

II.   THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER 77_ 

III.  THE  FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN 101 

IV.  THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN 127 


MISCELLANIES. 

I.  THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE 151 

II.   KING  LEAR  |  THE  TEXT 183 

(  PLOT  AND  PERSONAGES 210 

III.  STAGE  ROSALINDS 233 

IV.  ON  THE  ACTING  OF  IAGO 258 


EXPOSITORS. 

GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS 280 

NOTE  ON  W.  S.  WALKER'S  "CRITICAL  EXAMINATION  OF  THE 
TEXT "  .  .  364 


STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEAREo 


ON  BEADING  SHAKESPEAEE. 

I.    PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD. 

MANY  letters  have  come  to  ine  during  the  last  few 
years  asking  what  seems  to  me  a  very  strange  ques- 
tion—  How  to  read  Shakespeare.  My  answer  would 
naturally  be :  the  way  to  read  Shakespeare  is  —  to 
read  him.  The  rest  follows  as  matter  of  course.  If, 
not  having  read  before,  you  read  anywhere,  you  will 
know  a  new  delight ;  you  will  read  more  ;  you  will  go 
on  ;  in  your  eager  reading  you  will  consume  the  book. 
Having  read  all,  you  will  read  again,  and  now  will  be- 
gin to  ponder,  and  compare,  and  analyze,  and  seek  to 
fathom  ;  and  having  got  thus  far,  you  will  have  found 
an  occupation  which  lights  with  pleasure  the  whole  of 
your  leisure  life.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  natural 
way  of  reading  Shakespeare.  This  is  the  way  in  which 
I  have  found  that  most  of  the  truest  lovers  of  Shake- 
speare came  to  know  him,  to  delight  in  him,  and  finally 
to  wait  upon  him  with  a  kind  of  intellectual  wor- 
ship. It  is  hard  for  these  men  to  apprehend  that  there 
are  others  not  without  intelligence  and  education,  and 
who  read,  who  have  not  read  Shakespeare,  or  who  hav- 
ing read  a  little  of  him  do  not  read  more.  But  there 
are  such  men  ;  and  there  are  still  many  more  such 
women.  On  the  whole  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
1 


2  STUDIES  IN,  SHAKESPEARE. 

Shakespeare '  is  iioc  a  woman's  poet.  He  deals  too 
largely  with  life  ;  he  handles  the  very  elements  of  hu- 
man nature ;  he  has  a  great  fancy,  but  is  not  fanciful ; 
his  imagination  moulds  the  essential  and  the  central 
rather  than  the  external ;  he  is  rarely  sentimental, 
never  except  in  his  youngest  work.  Women,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  who  are  not  always  the  most  lov- 
able or  the  happiest  of  the  sex,  like  something  upon  a 
lower  plane,  something  that  appeals  more  directly  to 
them,  because  it  was  written  to  appeal  directly  to  some 
one  else  (for  in  literature  that  which  is  directed  to  one 
point  always  keeps  its  aim)  ;  they  like  the  personal, 
the  external ;  that  which  seems  to  be  showing  them 
either  themselves  or  some  other  real  person.  Shake- 
speare's humor,  which  is  equalled  by  no  other,  but 
most  nearly  approached  by  Sir  Walter  Scott's  when 
he  is  in  his  happiest  moods,  is  appreciated  by  still 
fewer  women  than  the  number  who  find  pleasure  in 
his  poetry.  They  receive  it  in  rather  a  dazed  fashion, 
and  don't  know  exactly  what  it  means.  All  this,  just 
as  they  would  rather  look  at  a  woman  of  the  first 
fashion  in  a  dress  of  their  time  than  at  the  grand 
simplicity  of  ideal  woman  in  the  Venus  (so-called) 
of  Melos. 

Then  there  are  people  who  read  Shakespeare  as  an 
elder  acquaintance  of  my  boyish  years  read  him.  He 
asked  me  if  I  would  lend  him  my  Shakespeare.  Strip- 
ling as  I  was,  I  thought  it  a  strange  thing  for  a  fellow 
who  lived  in  a  big,  handsome  house  to  borrow  ;  but  I 
lent  him  my  treasure.  He  brought  it  back  the  day 
but  one  afterward,  with  the  remark  that  he  "  liked 
it  very  much,"  which  I  heard  with  mingled  amuse- 
ment and  amazement.  Yet  he  was  a  not  unintelligent 
youth,  did  well  in  life,  and  becoming  a  man  of  wealth, 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  3 

developed  in  one  department  of  art  "  quite  a  taste." 
Perhaps  if  he  had  had  some  advice  about  reading 
Shakespeare  he  would  not  have  returned  the  volume 
containing  his  entire  works  after  thirty-six  hours'  pos- 
session, with  just  that  expression  of  approval. 

Most  of  those  who  have  asked  this  advice  are,  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  very  young,  as  indeed  some  of  them 
say  they  are  ;  and  a  large  proportion  are  plainly  girls 
just  beginning  to  feel  their  way  in  literature,  and 
they  ask,  in  the  words  of  one  of  them,  "  How  shall  I 
begin  ?  and  which  plays  shall  I  read  first,  so  as  to  be 
sure  to  like  them  and  their  author?  "  Such  uncertainty, 
I  must  confess,  does  not  promise  any  genuine,  strong 
taste  for  Shakespeare.  Boys  are  of  slower  mental 
growth  than  girls,  especially  upon  the  poetical  and 
sentimental  side  ;  but  no  boy  who  is  a  born  Shake- 
speare-lover needs  to  ask  such  a  question  as  that  at 
sixteen.  He  has  then  already  stepped  in  too  far  to 
pick  his  way  or  to  turn  back. 

In  beginning  to  read  Shakespeare  the  first  rule  — 
and  it  is  absolute  and  without  exception,  a  rare  rule 
indeed  —  is  to  read  him  only.  Throw  the  commenta- 
tors and  the  editors  to  the  dogs.  Don't  read  any  man's 
notes,  or  essays,  or  introductions,  aesthetical,  historical, 
philosophical,  or  philological.  Don't  read  mine.  Read 
the  plays  themselves.  Be  absolutely  unconcerned  what 
is  their  origin,  what  the  date  of  their  production,  or 
what  the  condition  of  their  text.  Don't  attempt  criti- 
cism, either  aesthetic  or  verbal ;  above  all  keep  your 
mind  entirely  free  from  the  influence  of  what  this  or 
that  eminent  critic  has  said  about  them.  Read  at  first 
chiefly,  rather  only,  for  the  story ;  that  is,  for  the  dra- 
matic development  and  interest  of  the  plot.  If  you 
have  the  capacity  of  appreciating  Shakespeare,  you 


4  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

will  find  that  it  takes  hold  of  you  at  once.  But  don't 
hurry  through  a  play  as  you  would  through  a  society 
novel,  skipping  the  unessential,  or  what  seems  to  you 
to  be  so.  Don't  skip  anything ;  even  the  briefest 
scene  or  the  most  trivial  speech  of  the  most  unimpor- 
tant personage.  Shakespeare  flung  abroad  his  wealth ; 
for  his  hand  was  full  of  it,  and  it  fell  upon  all  his 
creatures.  The  lips  of  his  very  peasants  and  beggars 
drop  jewels.  But  until  you  have  mastered  the  story, 
and  have  a  clear  and  strong  apprehension  of  the  dra- 
matic relations  of  the  personages,  do  not  stop  any 
longer  than  you  must  needs  to  admire  even  the  match- 
less beauty  of  his  utterance.  There  is  time  enough 
for  that.  That  is  a  pleasure  that  will  last  your  whole 
life,  and  grow  greater  as  you  grow  older.  Look  at 
the  men  and  women  that  he  sets  before  you,  and  see 
the  way  of  their  moral  and  mental  growth,  and  the 
way  that  they  work  upon  each  other,  and  what  comes 
in  the  end  of  what  they  are  and  what  they  do. 

After  you  have  read  all  the  plays  in  this  way,  with 
a  few  exceptions  which  I  shall  point  out,  you  may 
then  begin  to  study  Shakespeare  as  a  poet,  and,  with 
the  help  of  critics,  to  observe  his  use  of  language  — 
that  which  is  peculiar  to  him,  and  that  which  is  pecu- 
liar to  his  time  ;  to  inquire  into  the  allusions  that  he 
makes  to  subjects  which  are  new  to  you  because  they 
are  old;  to  examine  the  construction  of  his  plays, 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  were  developed  from 
the  tales,  the  chronicles,  and  the  older  plays  upon 
which  they  are  founded.  In  a  word,  you  may  then 
enter  upon  the  critical  study  of  Shakespeare,  for 
which  of  course  a  critical  edition  is  necessary.  But 
first,  and  above  all,  begin  by  reading  him,  pure  and 
simple,  and  in  an  humble  and  receptive  spirit.  When 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  5 

you  meet  with  anything,  either  in  the  language  or  in 
the  action  of  the  personages,  that  you  do  not  under- 
stand, or  which  seems  unnatural  or  out  of  keeping,  as- 
sume, for  the  nonce  at  least,  that  Shakespeare,  or  even 
his  editors,  may  be  right  and  you  wrong.  Don't  waste 
much  time  in  beating  your  head  against  the  difficulty, 
but  leave  it  as  a  subject  for  future  consideration,  and 
go  on  with  the  play. 

The  plays  which  you  would  do  well  to  pass  over  in  your 
first  reading  are,  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  "  Pericles," 
"King  Henry  VI.,"  and  perhaps  "Love's  Labour's 
Lost."  The  reasons  for  the  omission  of  these  plays  from 
your  acquaintance-making  with  Shakespeare  are  :  that 
"  Titus  Andronicus  "  is  a  horrible,  coarse,  and  child- 
ishly constructed  tragedy,  filled  with  bombastic  lan- 
guage and  bloody  deeds,  —  a  play  of  which  Shake- 
speare wrote  but  a  part ;  it  being  chiefly  the  work 
of  Christopher  Marlowe,  and  probably  George  Peele, 
two  playwrights  who  were  elder  contemporaries  of  his, 
and  with  whom  he  worked  more  or  less  in  the  begin- 
ning of  his  theatrical  life  :  —  that  "  Pericles,"  although 
it  is  rich,  particularly  in  the  later  acts,  in  work  of 
Shakespeare's  best  period,  was  not  planned  by  him, 
and  was  written  by  him  only  in  part,  and  cannot  be 
read  as  an  example  of  his  dramatic  characterization 
or  with  much  pleasure  by  a  novice  in  Shakespeare 
reading,  because  of  its  very  unskilful  construction, 
and  repulsive,  puerile  story :  —  that  "  King  Henry  VI." 
is  open  to  exceptions  of  the  same  kind  as  to  author- 
ship, the  particulars  of  which  need  not  be  given  here  :  — 
and  that  "Love's  Labour's  Lost,"  although  it  is 
Shakespeare's  beyond  question,  and  his  probably 
without  the  interpolation  of  a  single  line  by  another 
playwright,  lacks  dramatic  interest  in  its  construction 


6  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

and  its  dialogue,  and  is  full  of  cold  conceits  and  of 
personages  more  like  stage  puppets  than  those  which 
appear  in  any  other  of  Shakespeare's  undoubted 
works.  One  reason  of  this  is  tltat  "  Love's  Labour 's 
Lost,"  we  may  be  sure,  is  the  first  existing  play  that 
he  wrote  single-handed ;  an  almost  boyish  production. 
And  yet  his  worthy  reader  will  find  in  it  touches  of 
fancy,  of  humor,  and  even  of  wisdom,  which  we 
know  could  then  have  come  from  no  other  hand.  Con- 
sidering who  wrote  it,  its  chief  lack,  regarded  even  as 
a  youthful  work,  is  in  poetic  fancy.  Of  knowledge 
of  human  nature  it  displays  a  remarkable  store  in  one 
so  young  as  its  author  was.  The  reading  of  it  ought 
not  to  check  the  enthusiasm  of  a  true  Shakespeare 
lover  at  any  period  of  his  pupilage. 

At  what  time  of  life  the  reading  of  Shakespeare 
may  be  begun  with  profit  and  with  pleasure,  it  is  hard 
to  say.  One  thing  is  sure :  it  is  never  too  late  to 
begin,  and  however  late,  always  begin  in  just  this 
way.  The  young  reader  may  begin  Shakespeare  read- 
ing at  the  first  temptation  to  do  so.  A  one-volume 
edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays  is  a  good  book  to  leave 
in  the  way  of  young  people.  It  may  do  them  a  great 
deal  of  good;  it  can  do  no  one  of  them  any  harm. 
There  is  no  art  or  mystery  in  reading  Shakespeare. 
It  should  not  be  thrust  upon  any  one,  but  be  left  to 
come  by  nature  ;  for  if  it  come  not  in  that  way,  look 
for  it  in  no  other.  I  have  said  that  most  boys  who 
are  Shakespeare  lovers  have  the  love  strongly  upon 
them  before  they  are  sixteen.  Such  I  know  was  my 
own  case.  I  was  not  fifteen  when,  to  my  father  ask- 
ing, as  he  saw  my  delight  in  my  hand,  which  of  the 
plays  I  liked  best,  I  answered,  "  King  Lear ;  "  sur- 
prising him,  as  I  found,  for  he  had  supposed  that  I 


ON  BEADING  SHAKESPEARE.  7 

would  say,  "Romeo  and  Juliet."  But  I  had  been 
brought  up  on  the  Bible,  which  I  had  read  until  even 
at  this  day  I  know  it  better  than  I  know  any  other 
book,  and  this  with  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  and  the 
Waverley  novels,  every  one  of  which  I  had  read  over 
and  over  again,  had  made  poor  books  distasteful  to  me, 
and  awakened  in  me  a  greed  for  the  good  ;  for  which 
wise  training  of  my  boyhood  I  cannot  be  too  grateful. 
Let  therefore  no  young  person  shrink  from  beginning 
an  acquaintance  with  Shakespeare  on  the  ground  of 
youth,  or  through  fear  of  not  understanding  him. 
True,  all  young  people  will  find  much  in  his  pages 
that  they  cannot  fully  comprehend,  and  some  things 
that  they  may  not  quite  apprehend ;  but  so  will  old 
people;  there  is  always  some  new  revelation  to  be 
received  from  Shakespeare.  So  I  was  told  in  my 
youth  by  old  people  who  had  loved  and  read  him 
from  youth  to  age;  and  so  I  have  found,  myself,  as 
years  have  gone  by. 

As  to  the  play  with  which  it  is  best  for  a  young 
reader  of  Shakespeare  to  begin,  I  should  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  the  first  play  in  most  editions,  "  The 
Tempest,"  is  as  good  as  any,  although  it  is  among  the 
last  productions  of  his  later  years  as  a  dramatic 
writer.  The  novelty  and  interest  of  its  personages 
and  its  situations,  its  simple  construction,  and  its 
poetry,  which  soars  but  never  gets  among  the  clouds 
or  into  atmosphere  too  rare  for  ordinary  mortals' 
breathing,  make  it  the  source  of  a  pleasure  that  no 
one  capable  of  literary  art  can  fail  to  drink  in  with 
a  delight  unknown  before.  The  tempest  ceases,  and 
the  lowering  sky  breaks,  after  the  first  scene ;  the  rest 
is  filled  with  the  light  of  coming  happiness.  If  not 
this, "  As  You  Like  It "  might  first  be  taken  up ;  then 


8  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

"  The  Merchant  of  Venice  "  and  "  Much  Ado  about 
Nothing."  To  these  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  might 
well  succeed,  after  which  a  return  to  the  comedies 
would  be  advisable,  except  that  I  should  recommend 
that  "All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,"  "The  Winter's 
Tale,"  and  "  Measure  for  Measure "  should  be  left 
until  the  last,  and  indeed  until  the  reader  shall  have 
made  further  acquaintance  with  the  tragedies,  and 
read  at  least  two  of  the  histories  —  the  First  and 
Second  Parts  of  "King  Henry  IV."  To  these  it 
would  be  well  to  pass  from  "  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,"  because  of  Falstaff,  whose  humor  appears 
in  its  lowest  (yet  high)  form  in  "  The  Merry  Wives," 
and  in  its  highest  in  the  Second  Part  of  "  Henry  IV." 
The  reader  cannot  now  well  go  astray ;  but  I  should 
advise  that  the  Roman  and  Grecian  plays  should  be 
left  until  the  last,  "  Troilus  and  Cressida "  being 
read  last  of  all ;  not  because  of  any  superiority,  al- 
though it  is  one  of  Shakespeare's  greatest  works,  but 
because  of  a  peculiarity  which  I  shall  speak  of  further 
on. 

The  plays  (with  the  exceptions  named)  having  been 
read  in  this  way  once  (but  two  or  three  times  would 
be  better),  the  Shakespeare-lover  will  wish  to  know 
them  more  intimately,  to  study  their  language,  to  un- 
derstand their  construction,  to  fathom  their  thought 
and  their  feeling.  But  before  doing  this  he  should 
read  the  poems,  remembering  that  "  Venus  and  Ado- 
nis "  is  a  very  youthful  production,  and  not  in  Shake- 
speare's peculiar  manner,  but  in  the  manner  of  the 
time,  and  that  "  Lucrece,"  although  freer  in  style,  is 
open  to  the  same  criticism.  One  reading  will  suffice 
for  these. 

The  "  Sonnets  "  are  of  an  altogether  different  cast 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  9 

Whatever  was  their  occasion,  they  came  from  Shake- 
speare's heart  of  hearts.  Whoever  can  read  them 
once,  and  not  read  them  again  and  again,  borne  on 
and  up  by  their  strong  flow  of  feeling,  lost  in  the  fas- 
cinating mystery  of  their  allusions,  has  not  the  root 
of  the  matter  in  him,  and  may  as  well  attempt  to  see 
no  further  into  Shakespeare  than  a  very  little  way  be- 
low the  surface.  This  done,  in  the  more  thoughtful 
re-reading  of  the  plays  it  will  be  well  to  take  a  course 
which  follows  the  development  of  Shakespeare's  mind, 
reading  his  plays  in  the  order  of  their  production,  so 
far  at  least  as  that  has  been  discovered  with  reasonable 
probability.  For  we  know  so  little  about  Shakespeare 
that  even  the  order  in  which  he  wrote  his  plays  must 
be  determined  by  inference  from  internal  and  external 
evidence.  It  is  as  a  guide  to  such  a  course  that  the 
following  remarks  upon  the  plays  are  offered. 

The  reader  who,  having  mastered  and  enjoyed  the 
whole  of  the  plays,  although  only  in  outline  as  it  were, 
returns  to  "  Love's  Labour  's  Lost,"  or  then  takes  it 
up  for  the  first  time,  will  see  one  of  the  most  striking- 
examples  in  all  literature  of  the  difference  that  exists 
between  mature  and  immature  genius  of  the  highest 
order.  The  whole  play  is  stiff  and  crude  (remember 
that  we  are  standing  upon  the  Shakespearean  plane)  ; 
its  personages  show  germs  of  character  or  imperfect 
outlines,  rather  than  character ;  they  are  book-made, 
and,  like  most  very  youthful  work,  show  reminiscence, 
with  little  of  that  modification  and  enrichment  by 
which  greatly  gifted  minds,  imparting  their  gifts,  ren- 
der reminiscences  their  own.1  The  play  is  constructed 
upon  a  fantastic  conceit,  and  indeed,  with  "  The  Com- 

1  In  the  Introduction  and  Notes  to  this  play  in  my  edition,  1857,  this 
view  and  what  follows  are  more  particularly  set  forth. 


10  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

edy  of  Errors  "  and  "  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream," 
belongs  to  the  region  of  pure  fantasy.  The  first  and 
last  of  these  three  plays  are  almost  like  glorified  fairy 
pieces  or  masques ;  the  "  Errors  "  being  like  a  glorified 
burlesque.  .  Shakespeare  doubtless  formed  it  in  a 
measure  upon  the  model  of  the  court  comedies  of  his 
elder  contemporary  John  Lilly,  the  author  of  "  Eu- 
phues,"  a  very  clever  book,  but  quaint,  stiff,  little 
read,  less  understood,  and  therefore  much  misrepre- 
sented. But  fantastic  and  jejune  as  the  play  is,  ob- 
serve in  the  drawing  of  Birone  and  Rosaline,  stiff  and 
formal  although  it  is,  like  that  of  one  of  Raphael's 
early  Perugine  Madonnas,  tokens  of  the  hand  which 
afterward  ^rew  Benedick  and  Beatrice  with  such  free- 
dom and  such  strength.  Note  the  worldly  wisdom 
which  appears  in  this  work  of  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
three  or  twenty-four ;  of  which  I  cite  first  three  well 
known  surprisingly  sagacious  lines;  — 

A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear 

Of  him  that  hears  it,  never  in  the  tongue 

Of  him  that  makes  it. 

Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

Then  these  not  less  sagacious,  but  not  so  well  known  as 
they  should  be  :  — 

Small  have  continual  plodders  ever  won 

Save  base  authority  from  others'  books. 
These  earthly  godfathers  of  heaven's  lights 

That  give  a  name  to  every  fixed  star 
Have  no  more  profit  of  their  shining  nights 

Than  those  that  walk  and  wot  not  what  they  are. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

But  remark  chiefly  the  wisdom  with  which  Rosaline 
disciplines  Birone,  almost  "  chastising  him  with  the 
valor  of  her  tongue."  She  preaches  at  him  too  much, 
it  is  true ;  but  none  the  less  it  is  great  sermonizing  £o 
come  from  a  young  actor's  pen.  This  play,  Shake- 


- 


ON   READING  SHAKESPEARE.  11 

speare's  first,  has  the  remarkable  distinction  of  being 
the  only  one  which  contains  a  passage  in  praise  of 
woman  —  a  theme  upon  which  other  poets  have  been 
so  copious.  Shakespeare's  women  are  far  beyond  the 
creative  power  of  other  poets  and  dramatists ;  but  only 
in  this  play,  of  all  the  thirty-seven,  does  he  speak  one 
word  in  praise  of  the  sex,  and  that  with  no  very  ex- 
alted feeling,  so  that  it  does  not  amount  to  praise  of 
woman  in  the  abstract.1  This  neglect  to  pay  tribute 
of  praise  to  the  sex,  and  the  fact  that  passages  of  an 
opposite  bearing  may  be  found  in  Shakespeare's  works, 
cannot  be  without  significance ;  and  I  attribute  it  to 
his  ill  fortune  in  his  wife  and  afterward  in  his  mistress 
—  that  beautiful  dark  woman  whose  infidelity  to  him 
with  his  best  friend  he  reproaches  so  bitterly  in  the 
"  Sonnets."  For  that  the  more  important  of  those 
"  Sonnets  "  were  not  written  as  an  expression  of  per- 
sonal feeling  is  to  me  improbable  to  the  verge  of  in- 
credibility. 

The  next  play  of  this  little  group,  "  The  Comedy  of 
Errors-,"  is  a  mere  interweaving  of  farcical  contretemps 
which  come  of  the  likeness  of  two  twin  masters  and 
two  twin  servants  who  have  been  separated  since  child- 
hood. It  is  an  imitation  of  Plautus's  "  Mensechmi," 
of  which  Shakespeare  saw  a  translation  which  he  took, 
as  a  mere  playwright,  and  worked  it  over  into  some- 
thing that  would  please  his  audience.  In  this  "  Errors  " 
the  thought  is  of  lighter  weight  than  in  any  other  of 
his  undoubted  works ;  lighter  even  than  in  "  Love's 
Labour  's  Lost "  or  "  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream." 
Naturally  it  is  so  from  the  character  of  the  plot,  which 

1  The  few  lines  of  Act  IV.  Sc.  3,  beginning  "  From  women's  eyes." 
WIiMi,  some  fifteen  years  ago,  I  made  the  assertion  that  Shakespeare  had 
written  nothing  in  praise  of  woman  it  was  received  with  astonishment,  de- 
nial, and  derision. 


12  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

is  not  only,  like  those  of  the  two  others,  impossible, 
although  supposable,  but  coarsely  farcical  rather  than 
fanciful.  It  is  a  burlesque  of  the  supposable  impos- 
sible. Yet  observe  how,  notwithstanding  this,  in  the 
serious  passages  which  merely  serve  as  a  stable  frame- 
work for  the  fantastic  fun,  a  knowledge  of  human 
nature  crops  out  as  it  had  done  in  no  other  play  writ- 
ten before  by  a  modern  dramatist.  Here  is  Shake- 
speare's first  exhibition  of  jealousy;  and  it  is  the 
woman  who  is  jealous.  And  indeed  women  only  are 
truly  jealous.  To  this  rule  the  exceptions  among  men 
are  very  rare  ;  sexual  jealousy  being  essentially  a  femi- 
nine passion.  This  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to 
consider  the  cases  of  Othello,  Claudio,  and  Leontes. 
Adriana,  being  jealous  of  her  husband  —  that  is,  sus- 
picious that  she  has  not  his  love,  that  he  slights  her 
person  —  breaks  out  thus  against  him  to  her  sister :  — 

I  cannot,  nor  I  will  not,  hold  me  still. 

My  tongue,  though  not  my  heart,  shall  have  his  will. 

He  is  deformed,  crooked,  old  and  sere, 

Ill-faced,  worse  bodied,  shapeless  everywhere  ; 

Vicious,  ungentle,  foolish,  blunt,  unkind,  • 

Stigmatical  in  making,  worse  in  mind. 

Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

To  which  the  sister  thus  unanswerably  replies :  — 

Who  would  be  jealous  then  of  such  a  one  ? 
No  evil  lost  is  wail'd  when  it  is  gone. 

Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

Then  comes  the  fine  feminine  touch :  — 

Ah  !  but" I  hold  him  better  than  I  say, 

And  vet  would  herein  others'  eyes  were  worse. 

Far  from  her  nest  the  lapwing  cries  away  : 
Mv  heart  prays  for  him,  though  my  tongue  do  curse. 

Act.  IV.  Sc.  2. 

Woman  is  very  concretely  faithless  in  this  matter, 
and  will  slander  sometimes,  to  her  rival,  the  very 
man  she  dotes  upon,  in  hopes  that  thereby  she  may 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  13 

keep  him  to  herself.  The  passage  just  quoted  is  very 
rude  work  for  Shakespeare.  It  lacks  all  the  delicacy 
and  subtleness  of  suggestion  with  which  he  in  his  later 
plays  deploys  any  passion,  particularly  on  the  part  of 
a  woman.  But  nevertheless,  as  a  whole,  this  is  a  rev- 
elation of  natural  feeling  in  speech  very  far  superior 
to  anything  of  the  kind  that  had  been  written  before 
by  a  dramatist  in  any  modern  language.  And  after- 
ward the  abbess  of  a  convent  in  which  Antipholus  takes 
sanctuary,  he  being  supposed  to  be  mad,  talks  with 
Adriana  about  her  treatment  of  her  husband;  tells 
her  that  she  did  not  reprehend  him  enough  for  his 
wanderings,  or  at  least  not  roughly  enough,  or  only  in 
private,  and  again,  not  enough  ;  by  which  she  craftily 
leads  Adriana  to  this  strong  plea  of  self -justification  : 

It  was  the  copy  of  our  conference : 
In  bed  he  slept  not  for  my  urging  it ; 
At  board  he  fed  not  for  my  urging  it  ; 
Alone,  it  was  the  subject  of  my  theme  ; 
In  company  I  often  glanced  it  ; 
Still  did  I  tell  him  he  was  vile  and  bad. 

Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Whereupon  the  abbess,  having  ingeniously  got  at 
the  truth  and  gained  her  point,  thus  promptly  replies : 

And  thereof  came  it  that  the  man  was  mad: 
The  venom  clamours  of  a  jealous  woman 
Poisons  more  deadly  than  a  mad  dog's  tooth. 

Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Nothing  like  this  had  then  been  written  in  a  modern 
play,  and  we  might  almost  safely  say  in  modern  litera- 
ture. And  Shakespeare  when  he  wrote  this  was  only 
about  twenty-six  years  old.  True,  he  married  when 
he  was  but  eighteen  a  woman  eight  years  older  than 
himself,  and  lived  with  her  some  three  or  four  years 
before  he  escaped  to  London,  where  he  lived,  not  with 
her,  until  he  was  about  forty-eight. 


14  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

"A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,"  although  in  the 
same  category  with  the  two  plays  already  remarked 
upon,  shows  a  great  advance  upon  them,  and  in  my 
opinion  was  written,  or  at  least  completed,  some  three 
or  four  years  later  than  either.  Because  it  belongs  to 
the  same  fanciful  or  fantastical  school  in  its  construc- 
tion, some  critics  have  inferred  that  the  three  were 
written  in  close  succession.  This,  however,  seems  too 
strait  a  limitation  of  mental  action  on  the  part  of  a 
playwright,  if  not  of  a  poet.  Must  we  assume  that 
Shakespeare  adhered  to  one  method  so  strictly,  and 
exchanged  his  style  so  suddenly  and  so  absolutely  that 
there  was  a  violent  and  visible  rupture,  and  that  he 
wrote  nothing  in  his  fanciful  style  after  a  certain  year, 
and  nothing  in  another  manner  before  it  ?  Is  it  not 
rather  according  to  the  common  course  of  intellectual 
development  that  such  changes  should  be  somewhat 
gradual  ?  Certainly  great  painters  and  poets,  great 
masters  of  all  arts,  have  not  unfrequently  reverted, 
to  a  certain  degree  at  least,  to  a  former  manner  before 
they  abandoned  it  entirely.  This  course  of  events  is 
intellectual  growth ;  the  former  would  be  intellectual 
transmutation.  "  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  "  may 
have  been  one  of  its  author's  earliest  dramatic  concep- 
tions, but  in  its  execution  it  shows,  both  in  thought 
and  in  structure,  and  no  less  in  poetical  form,  a 
marked  mental  development  in  the  author  of  "  Love's 
Labour  's  Lost  "  and  the  "  Errors." 

The "  Dream "  seems  to  be  in  substance  and  in 
structure  entirely  Shakespeare's.  No  prototype  of  it 
is  known  either  in  drama  or  in  story.  And  it  is  in 
these  respects  of  very  much  higher  quality  than  either 
of  the  others.  Like  them,  indeed,  it  is  fantastical  and 
impossible  ;  but  unlike  them,  it  has  a  real  human  in- 


ON   READING  SHAKESPEARE.  15 

terest,  while  its  satire  is  that  of  a  man  who  has  had 
opportunities  of  studying  his  fellow-men  widely  as  well 
as  closely,  and  its  poetry  is  very  far  beyond  theirs  in 
beauty  both  of  form  and  of  spirit.  For  the  first  time 
we  have  here  a  personage  whose  character  has  made 
him  a  widely  known  and  accepted  type.1  The  con- 
ceited, pretentious  man  of  some  ability,  who  is  yet  an 
ass,  has  in  Nick  Bottom  his  earliest  and  also  his  most 
admirable  representative  in  literature.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  have  in  this  comedy  the  first  childing  of  its 
author's  fruitful  fancy,  and  of  his  ability  to  clothe  his 
fancies  in  phrases  of  delicious  beauty,  the  sweetness 
of  which  never  palls  upon  ear  or  mind.  The  enchant- 
ing compliment  to  Queen  Elizabeth  is  perhaps  the 
finest  example  in  poetry  of  fancy  pushed  to  the  verge 
of  extravagance,  and  yet  kept  within  the  limits  of 
good  taste.  But  although  the  most  admirable  passage 
of  its  kind  in  the  comedy,  it  is  only  one  of  many  of 
that  kind.  Two  or  three  lines  of  it  are  very  familiar ; 
but  its  highest  beauty  is  in  the  sustained  grace  and 
elevation  of  the  whole ;  and  for  that  reason,  and  for 
another  important  one,  I  quote  the  whole : 

Oberon.  Thou  rememb'rest 

Since  once  I  sat  upon  a  promontory, 
And  heard  a  mermaid  on  a  dolphin's  back 
Uttering  such  dulcet  and  harmonious  breath 
That  the  rude  sea  grew  civil  at  her  song 
And  certain  stars  shot  madly  from  their  spheres, 
To  hear  the  sea-maid's  music? 

Puck.  I  remember. 

Oberon.    That  very  time  I  saw,  but  thou  couldst  not, 
Flying  between  the  cold  moon  and  the  earth, 
Cupid  all  arm'd :  a  certain  aim  he  took 
At  a  fair  vestal  throned  by  the  west, 

1  Unless  we  except  Jack  Cade,  the  t}rpe  of  the  ignorant  crafty  dema- 
gogue. Cade,  however,  is  not  only  much  inferior  to  Bottom,  but  he  is  of 
doubtful  origin,  as  he  appears  in  the  First  Part  of  The  Contention,  etc., 
which  was  rewritten  as  the  Second  Part  of  King  Henry  VI. 


16  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

And  loos'd  his  love-shaft  smartly  from  his  bow, 
As  it  should  pierce  a  hundred  thousand  hearts  ; 
But  I  might  see  young  Cupid's  fiery  shaft 
Quench'd  in  the  chaste  beams  of  the  watery  moon, 
And  the  imperial  votaress  passed  on, 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy-free. 

Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

The  last  line  is  the  most  beautiful  example  in  all 
literature  of  the  beauty  of  alliteration  —  a  trait  of 
style  which  may  become,  and  often  does  become,  pesti- 
lent. But  turning  for  the  moment  from  this  passage, 
the  beauty  of  which  is  of  a  kind  that  appears  in  a 
marked  degree  in  no  earlier  play  of  Shakespeare's, 
and  indicates  a  rapid  development  of  high  poetic 
faculty,  I  direct  the  reader's  attention  to  another 
manifestation  of  mental  growth  —  that  poetical  sen- 
tentiousness  which  is  so  peculiar  a  trait  of  Shake- 
speare ;  that  faculty  of  welding  together  truth,  wis- 
dom, and  fancy  in  such  a  closely  wrought  unity  that 
they  are  essentially  one,  and  that  it  is  impossible  even 
to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other.  Such,  for  ex- 
ample, is  that  passage  upon  imagination,  with  its 
fine  distinction  between  apprehension  and  comprehen- 
sion, and  its  description  of  the  poet's  method  and 
function. 1  This  is  a  long  step  in  advance  of  anything 
of  its  kind  that  Shakespeare  had  produced  before. 
And  thus  the  play,  although  it  bears  the  marks  of 
youth  —  the  youth  of  Shakespeare  —  and  although  it 
belongs  to  the  class  in  which  fancy  predominates,  and 
the  fantastic-impossible  is  the  groundwork  of  the  ac- 
tion, and  the  depths  of  man's  nature  are  left  un- 
sounded, rises  as  a  whole  into  the  upper,  although 
not  the  topmost,  heaven  of  dramatic  poetry,  and  is 
the  first  of  the  works  of  its  author  which  lift  him  into 
a  place  which  others  only  approach. 

1  "  Lovers  and  madmen  have  such  seething  brains,"  etc,    Act  V.  Sc.  1 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  17 

The  observant  reader  of  these  three  comedies 
(whom  I  suppose  to  have  made  himself  generally 
acquainted  with  the  whole  of  the  plays)  will  be  struck 
by  the  form  of  their  poetry.  They  contain  a  great 
deal  of  rhyming  verse.  This  is  an  outward  and  vis- 
ible sign  of  Shakespeare's  youthful  work;  a  sign 
which,  taken  in  connection  with  his  tone  of  feeling 
and  his  cast  of  thought,  enables  us  to  classify  his 
plays  according  to  their  periods  of  production.  For 
as  his  mind  matured,  his  taste  purified  itself,  and  his 
hand  acquired  dramatic  power  and  freedom,  he  cast 
off  the  fetters  of  rhyme,  so  that  even  in  the  plays  of 
his  second  or  middle  period  it  rarely  clogs  the  dra- 
matic utterance  of  his  personages.  But  there  is  an- 
other external  indication  of  poetical  progress,  even  in 
these  three  early  plays.  The  blank  verse  changes  in 
character.  Read  the  passage  quoted  above  from  "  A 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream  "  with  careful  attention 
to  its  structure,  and  mark  its  easy  flow.  See  how  the 
pauses  are  varied,  how  the  course  of  the  thought  and 
of  the  rhythm  is  carried  on  beyond  the  end  of  a  line 
to  find  a  pause  or  a  half  pause  in  the  body  of  the  next 
line.  See  how  the  answer  of  Puck  completes  a  verse 
left  incomplete  by  Oberon.  There  is  no  blank  verse 
of  corresponding  variety  and  beauty  in  "  Love's  La- 
bour 's  Lost  "  or  the  "  Errors."  In  them  the  pauses 
and  the  ends  of  the  verses  almost  always  coincide ; 
and  the  rhythm  is  comparatively  formal  and  con- 
strained. This  difference,  as  I  have  already  remarked, 
is  another  trait  of  Shakespeare's  poetical  growth.  The 
change  in  the  rhythm  of  his  blank  verse  is  one  of  the 
guides  to  the  period  of  the  production  of  his  several 
plays ;  one  which  we  cannot  trust  absolutely,  and 
which  indeed  has  itself  to  be  studied  and  determined 


18  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

in  connection  with  facts  which  establish  or  at  least 
limit  the  dates  of  production,  but  which,  when  once 
we  have  thus  got  upon  its  trail,  rarely  fails  to  lead  us 
aright. 

About  the  same  time  that  Shakespeare  wrote  these 
three  plays  he  entered  upon  another  dramatic  field  — 
that  of  the  comedy  of  society  —  and  produced  "  The 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  which  should  be  taken  up 
next  by  the  reader  who  wishes  to  follow  the  course  of 
his  dramatic  and  poetic  development.  Whether  it 
was  written  before  or  after  the  time  when  "  A  Mid- 
summer -  Night's  Dream "  was  completed  and  pro- 
duced, we  cannot,  I  think,  be  quite  sure.  I  am  in- 
clined to  the  opinion  that  the  latter,  as  tue  have  it, 
contains  later  work  than  appears  in  "  The  Two  Gen- 
tlemen of  Verona,"  which,  although  of  a  higher  sort,  is 
much  inferior  in  point  of  art  to  the  former.  It  is 
one  of  the  weakest  of  Shakespeare's  plays ;  but  yet 
it  is  a  very  much  better  comedy  in  every  respect  than 
had  been  written  before  by  a  modern  dramatist.  It 
has  some  charming  passages  and  some  fine  touches  of 
pure  Shakespearean  humor.  But  it  lacks  thoughtful- 
ness  (for  him)  ;  it  is  unfinished,  feeble  in  characteriza- 
tion, and  improbable  and  almost  offensive  in  some  of 
its  incidents.  The  lovers,  except  sweet  Julia,  do  not 
seem  to  be  thoroughly  in  earnest,  or  to  be  touched  with 
the  fine  fire  of  that  passion  as  it  is  generally  lit  up 
by  Shakespeare.  It  shows  that  Shakespeare  had  not 
freed  himself  from  the  influence  of  the  prose  ro- 
mancers of  his  early  day,  in  whose  tedious  and  un- 
natural tales  such  incidents  as  Silvia's  giving  the 
rejected  Proteus  her  picture,  Valentine's  giving  up 
Silvia  to  Proteus,  and  Proteus  offering  violence  to  Sil- 
via, are  not  uncommon.  It  has  rhymed  dialogue  > 


ON   READING   SHAKESPEARE.  19 

and  its  best  blank  verse  is  much  inferior  to  the  best 
blank  verse  of  "A  Midsummer  -  Night's  Dream." 
Still  it  is  the  first  comedy  cf  society  in  our  literature 
which  is  at  all  tolerable  as  a  representation  of  the 
daily  intercourse  of  real  human  beings.  It  is  to  be 
remarked  that  in  no  department  of  the  drama,  com- 
edy, history,  tragedy,  is  there  extant  any  play  ear- 
lier than  Shakespeare  which  is  entirely  acceptable 
because  of  its  intrinsic  value.  And  this  not  because 
we  are  so  dazzled  by  the  splendor  of  his  genius  that 
we  are  blinded  to  the  lesser  lights  that  rose  upon  the 
world  before  him,  but  because  they  failed  entirely  to 
do  what  he  did  supremely.  He  was  really  first  as  well 
as  greatest. 

From  these  comedies  the  reader  would  do  well  to 
turn  to  the  earliest  historical  plays,  which  were  pro- 
duced about  the  same  time  with  them,  or  soon  after, 
and  which  will  next  engage  our  attention. 

H.    PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD. 

OUR  examination  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  in  search 
of  a  course  of  reading  them  which,  following  the 
order  of  their  production,  would  enable  us  to  trace 
the  development  of  his  mind  as  a  poet,  a  playwright, 
and  a  philosophical  observer  of  human  nature,  has  led 
us  to  the  time  when  he  entered  upon  the  composition 
of  his  remarkable  series  of  historical  plays,  called  by 
his  fellow  actors  and  first  editors,  in  the  first  collected 
edition  of  his  works  (1623),  "histories."  This  kind 
of  play  is  not  peculiar  to  Shakespeare,  nor  was  he  by 
any  means  the  first  either  to  introduce  it  upon  the 
English  stage  or  to  bring  it  into  popular  favor-  In- 
deed, it  is  to  be  remarked,  and  noted  as  a  fact  full  of 


20  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

significance,  that  Shakespeare,  the  greatest  of  the  cre- 
ative minds  who  have  left  their  mark  upon  the  ages, 
produced  nothing  new  in  design.  His  supreme  excel- 
lence was  attained  simply  by  doing  better  than  any 
one  else  that  which  others  had  done  before  him,  and 
which  others  did  after  him,  with  the  same  purpose, 
upon  the  same  plan,  and  with  the  same  art  motive. 
This  fact,  and  the  other  previously  mentioned,  that 
Shakespeare  did  his  work  with  no  other  purpose  what- 
ever, moral,  philosophical,  artistic,  literary,  than  to 
make  an  attractive  play  which  would  bring  him  money, 
should  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  by  the  critical  and 
reflective  reader  of  his  plays.  The  clear  apprehen- 
sion of  them  will  save  him  from  wandering  off,  him- 
self, or  being  led  off  by  others  —  profound  people  who 
set  themselves  very  solemnly  to  the  task  of  seeing 
what  is  not  to  be  seen  —  into  various  fantastical  by- 
ways which  will  end  in  profound  bogs  and  pitfalls, 
or,  like  the  road  we  have  heard  of,  in  a  foot-path  that 
tapers  off  into  a  squirrel- track  that  will  leave  him  who 
follows  it  "  up  a  tree." 

Shakespeare  wrote  "  histories  "  because,  others  hav- 
ing written  them  before  him,  it  was  found  that  the 
theatre-going  people  of  the  day  liked  them,  and  he,  I 
feel  quite  sure,  began  at  first  to  write  them  in  connec- 
tion with  other  playwrights,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
time ;  when  it  was  customary  for  two  or  three  dra- 
matic poets,  or  even  more,  to  work  together  in  the 
production  of  one  play.  When  he  first  went  into  the 
theatrical  business  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
be  exempted  from  any  of  its  laws  or  customs.  He 
was  only  a  young  man  from  the  provinces  who  had 
come  up  to  London  to  seek  his  fortune;  and  he  might 


ON   READING   SHAKESPEARE.  21 

well  be  glad,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  he  was  glad,  to 
be  admitted  to  write  in  company  with  other  play- 
wrights who  had  already  established  some  reputation. 
His  first  dramatic  work  —  that  is,  such  work  as  was 
undertaken  for  a  theatrical  company  and  with  prospect 
of  immediate  performance,  or,  what  was  more  im- 
portant to  him,  payment  —  would  naturally  be  of  this 
kind.  That  he  had  already  written  poetry,  I  think 
much  more  than  probable,  almost  certain ;  but  his  first 
dramatic  work  that  went  before  the  public  was,  I  am 
of  the  opinion,  a  part  of  two  plays  called  "  The  Con- 
tention of  the  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,"  and 
"  The  True  Tragedy  of  the  Duke  of  York,"  which  he 
wrote  in  collaboration  with  Christopher  Marlowe, 
George  Peele,  and  probably  Eobert  Greene,  three 
playwrights  who  were  in  very  high  repute  when  he 
went  up  to  London.  These  historical  plays  may  be 
found  reprinted  in  Charles  Knight's  "  Pictorial  Edi- 
tion," and  in  the  Cambridge  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
Works  ;  but  I  should  not  advise  any  person  who  has  not 
the  desire  and  the  intention  to  make  a  very  thorough 
critical  study,  not  only  of  Shakespeare,  but  of  Eliza- 
bethan dramatic  literature  generally,  to  undertake  the 
reading  of  them.  They  afford-  neither  instruction  nor 
pleasure.  Parts  of  them  are  very  dreary ;  and  all  that 
is  in  them  of  Shakespeare's,  I  believe,  he  afterward 
took  out  and  incorporated  in  the  Second  and  Third 
Parts  of  "  King  Henry  VI.,"  as  they  appeared  in  the 
collected  editions  of  his  works.  The  reasons  of  this 
opinion  will  be  found  fully  set  forth  in  my  "  Essay  on 
the  Authorship  of  the  Three  Parts  of  Henry  VI. ;  " 
and  they  were  afterward  ably  summarized  and  en- 
forced in  an  abridgment  of  that  essay  by  another 


2U  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

writer,  which  took  the  Harkness  Shakespeare  Essay 
prize  at  Cambridge  University,  England.1 

The  reader  who  wishes  really  to  sturdy  Shake- 
speare's mind  in  its  peculiarities  and  its  development 
would  do  well  to  go  carefully  over  my  essay ;  and,  as 
an  ingenious  setting  forth  of  another  theory,  which  I 
regard  as  entirely  untenable,  that  Shakespeare  had  no 
hand  in  the  construction  and  real  writing  of  these 
plays,  I  commend  to  his  attention  an  essay  by  the  Rev. 
F.  G.  Fleay,  in  "  Macmillan's  Magazine  "  for  Novem- 
ber, 1875.  Then  let  him  read  the  Second  and  Third 
Parts  of  "  King  Henry  VI."  Part  I.  may  be  left  un- 
read ;  Shakespeare  had  little  if  anything  to  do  with 
the  writing  of  it ;  but  possibly  he  may  have  touched  its 
substance  and  modified  its  form  here  and  there,  suffi- 
ciently to  bring  it  into  keeping,  for  stage  purposes, 
with  Parts  II.  and  III.,  and  with  "  Richard  III.," 
which  was  produced  very  soon  afterward.  In  all  these 
plays  the  observant  reader  will  find  marks  of  Shake- 
speare's 'prentice  hand,  and  also,  if  he  is  at  all  familiar 
with  the  dramatic  poetry  of  the  early  Elizabethan 
period,  of  the  influence  of  Marlowe  and  Peele. 

TJje  pretence  which  has  been  made  for  Shakespeare, 
that  none  of  his  work  a*  any  period  of  his  life  resem- 
bles that  of  any  other  poet  or  playwright,  and  can  al- 
ways be  separated  from  that  of  his  co-workers,  is  en- 
tirely irreconcilable  with  the  facts  and  the  probabilities 
of  the  case,  and  with  the  history  of  all  arts,  poetry  in- 
cluded. True,  Shakespeare's  mind  was,  in  the  highest 
and  largest  sense  of  the  terms,  original  and  creative. 
But  such  minds,  no  less  than  others  of  narrower  and 

1  It  is  almost  imperatively  necessary  that  I  should  mention  this  fact  in 
self-protection.  The  judges,  as  I  have  reason  to  believe,  recognized  it; 
but  they  felt  obliged  to  give  their  decision  "in  favor  of  the  best  essay  be> 
fore  them,"  as  it  was  not  a  bald  plagiarism. 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  23 

inferior  power,  are  imitative  in  their  first  essays. 
They,  like  others,  may  attempt  at  first  some  new, 
strange  thing ;  they  may  possibly  strive  to  be  original, 
although  they  are  less  likely  to  do  so  than  the  smaller 
and  weaker  men.  For  a  seeking  after  originality  is 
one  of  the  sure  accompaniments,  or  at  least  one  of  the 
unmistakable  tokens,  of  a  felt  although  perhaps  an 
unconscious  mental  weakness.  To  original  creative 
minds  their  originality  and  their  creative  powers  come 
spontaneously  and  by  a  development  more  or  less  slow, 
and  the  originality  always  comes  unsought.  In  the 
early  work  of  even  such  strong,  original  minds  in  art 
as  Raphael  and  Michael  Aiigelo,  Mozart  and  Beetho- 
ven, we  find  not  only  traces  of  their  predecessors,  but 
such  absolute  assimilation  to  them  in  form  and  in 
spirit  that  were  it  not  for  slight  touches,  manifestly  in 
the  least  labored  and  least  purposed  passages,  we  could 
believe  them  the  productions  of  some  one  of  their  elder 
contemporaries. 

In  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  "  King  Henry 
VI.,"  therefore,  and  in  "  Richard  III.,"  which  contain 
the  earliest  of  his  historical  works,  we  find  traces  of  the 
principal  dramatic  poets  whom  he  found  in  possession 
of  the  stage  when  he  took  to  it  for  a  living.  Marlowe 
and  Peele  are  those  who  seem  to  have  impressed  him 
most.  A  likeness  to  both  these,  and  largely  to  Peele, 
appears  in  "  Richard  III.,"  which,  although  (because 
of  its  rapid  recurrence  of  exciting  scenes  and  inci- 
dents, its  turbulent  action,  and  the  centring  of  the  in- 
terest upon  one  chief  personage)  it  is  the  greatest 
favorite  of  all  the  histories  for  the  stage,  is  yet  the 
poorest  and  thinnest  in  thought,  the  least  free  and 
harmonious  in  rhythm  —  in  a  word,  the  least  Shake- 
spearean of  them  all.  Compare  it  with  "  Richard  II.,'" 


24  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

which  was  written  a  year  or  two  after  it,  and  in  which 
Shakespeare  seems  to  have  taken  his  first  great  step 
toward  originality  in  style  and  in  the  treatment  of  his 
material.  As  not  unfrequently  happens  in  such  cases, 
he  went  too  far,  and  produced  a  play  the  very  reverse 
in  style  and  spirit  of  "  Richard  III."  It  is  a  tragic 
dramatic  poem  rather  than  an  historical  play.  The 
action,  which  in  the  earlier  history  of  the  later  Rich- 
ard is  so  vivid,  lags ;  the  movement  is  languid,  and 
passages  t)f  reflection  and  contemplation  abound.  It 
has  passages  which  are  somewhat  in  Shakespeare's 
early  and  constrained  manner  both  as  to  thought  and 
versification.  Such  are  these  :  — 

Old  John  of  Gaunt,  time-honour'd  Lancaster, 
Hast  thon,  according  to  thy  oath  and  band, 
Brought  hither  Henry  Hereford  thy  bold  son, 
Here  to  make  good  the  boisterous  late  appeal, 
Which  then  our  leisure  would  not  let  us  hear, 
Against  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Thomas  Mowbray  ? 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Alas,  the  parti  had  in  Glou'ster's  blood 
Doth  more  solicit  me  than  your  exclaims, 
To  stir  against  the  butchers  of  his  life ! 
But  since  correction  lieth  in  those  hands 
Which  made  the  fault  that  we  cannot  correct, 
Put  we  our  quarrel  to  the  will  of  heaven ; 
Who,  when  they  see  the  hours  ripe  on  earth, 
Will  rain  hot  vengeance  on  offenders'  heads. 

Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Compare  these  passages  with  the  blank  verse  of 
"A  Midsummer  -  Night's  Dream"  and  "The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  and  see  the  similarity  between 
them ;  not,  of  course,  in  the  thoughts,  but  in  the 
manner  of  thought  and  "in  the  rhythm.  Observe,  in 
all,  the  frequency  of  the  pause  at  the  end  of  the  line ; 
the  sense  and  the  rhythm  drooping  together.  These 
traits  and  the  frequent  recurrence  of  rhymed  pas. 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  2t> 

sages  and  of  couplets  in  rhyme  at  the  close  of  speeches 
in  blank  verse,  a  style  of  ending  sometimes  called 
tag-rhymes,  might  lead  a  reader  with  whom  the  ex- 
ternal and  material  had  more  weight  than  the  internal 
and  spiritual  to  infer  that  "Richard  II."  was  the 
earliest  in  production  of  all  Shakespeare's  historical 
plays,  —  before  even  "  Richard  III.,1'  —  as  it  is  of  all 
those  which  are  wholly  original.  But  such  traits, 
although  they  are  of  some  value  as  guides  in  decid- 
ing the  question  of  the  succession  in  which  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  produced,  and  so  as  to  the  order 
in  which  they  should  be  read  by  those  who  wish  to 
follow  the  development  of  his  genius,  are  of  an  infe- 
rior order,  and  cannot  be  relied  upon.  Their  evidence 
is  to  be  accepted  as  confirmatory  or  accessory,  and 
should  be  reckoned  as  a  part  only  of  that  which  must 
be  taken  into  consideration.  For  it  could  not  be 
relied  upon,  even  should  we  set  aside  all  other  as  of 
no  account.  Thus,  for  example,  the  tag-rhymes  in 
"Love's  Labour's  Lost"  and  "The  Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona"  are  very  few  in  comparison  with 
those  in  "Richard  II."  and  "Richard  III.,"  al- 
though the  comedies  were  produced  at  about  the  same 
time  as  the  histories  and  unquestionably  before  them. 
As  to  the  order  of  production,  such  passages  as  the 
following  are  of  great  weight :  — 

To  please  the  king  I  did  ;  to  please  myself 
I  cannot  do  it.    Yet  I  know  no  cause 
Why  I  should  welcome  such  a  guest  as  grief, 
Save  bidding  farewell  to  so  sweet  a  guest 
As  my  sweet  Richard.    Yet  again,  methinks, 
Some  unborn  sorrow,  ripe  in  fortune's  womb, 
Is  coming  towards  me;  and  my  inward  soul 
With  nothing  trembles :  at  some  thing  it  grieves 
More  than  with  parting  from  my  lord  the  king. 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 


26  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Glad  am  I  that  your  highness  is  so  arm'd 

To  bear  the  tidings  of  calamity. 

Like  an  unseasonable  stormy  day, 

Which  makes  the  silver  rivers  drown  their  shores 

As  if  the  world  were  all  dissolved  to  tears, 

So  high  above  his  limits  swells  the  rage 

Of  Bolingbroke,  covering  your  fearful  land 

With  hard  bright  steel,  and  hearts  harder  than  steel. 

White  beards  have  arm'd  their  thin  and  hairless  scalps 

Against  thy  majesty ;  and  boys  with  women's  voices 

Strive  to  speak  big,  and  clap  their  female  joints 

In  stiff  unwieldy  arms  against  thy  crown. 

Thy  very  beadsmen  learn  to  bend  their  bows 

Of  double  fatal  yew  against  th}'  state. 

Yea,  distaff-women  manage  rusty  bills 

Against  thy  seat.     Both  young  and  old  rebel, 

And  all  goes  worse  than  I  have  power  to  tell. 

Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

Compare  these  with  any  parts  of  the  four  plays 
that  we  took  np  for  examination  in  our  previous  sec- 
tion, and  see  in  them  unmistakable  evidence  of  greater 
maturity  of  thought,  freer  command  of  language, 
more  skilful  construction  of  verse.  There  can  be  no 
doubt,  I  think,  that  they  are  the  product  of  Shake- 
speare's mind  at  its  first  attainment  of  free  and  in- 
dependent action,  while,  however,  other  passages  in 
the  same  play  show  that  it  was  yet  somewhat  restrained 
in  its  action  by  a  memory  of  his  predecessors  and  by 
the  influence  of  his  contemporaries. 

It  would  be  well,  therefore,  to  begin  acquaintance 
with  Shakespeare's  historical  plays  by  reading  the 
mixed  play  "  Richard  III."  first,  then  "  Richard  II.," 
and  then  "King  John."  This,  it  will  be  seen,  re- 
verses the  order  of  these  histories  according  to  the 
chronology  of  their  events,  which  would  place  "  King 
John "  first  and  "  Richard  III."  last  of  these  three, 
and  of  all  the  histories  except  "  Henry  VIII. ; " 
which  is  the  order  in  which  they  have  always  been 
printed.  But  chronology  should  be  entirely  disre- 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  27 

garded  by  the  student,  and  even  by  the  general  reader 
of  Shakespeare's  plays.  He  took  very  little  thought 
of  it  himself ;  and  only  the  "  Henry  VI."  series  and 
"Richard  III."  have  any  connection  or  relations  of 
interdependence.  Indeed,  as  to  historical  fact,  the 
histories  are  in  some  cases  inconsistent  with  each 
other ;  but  it  is  in  minor  and  unessential  fact  which 
does  not  affect  the  dramatic  motive  of  the  play.  Such 
points  as  this  are  not  to  be  regarded  by  the  reader 
of  Shakespeare,  whether  in  historical  play,  tragedy 
founded  upon  history,  or  in  comedy.  In  all  alike 
Shakespeare  regarded  his  facts,  i.  e.,  the  story,  as  mere 
material  on  which  he  was  to  work.  He  was  as  in- 
different in  regard  to  anachronism  as  he  was  in  regard 
to  the  unities  of  time  and  place. 

Nothing,  however,  affecting  Shakespeare's  mental 
development  or  his  dramatic  art  can  be  inferred  from 
his  practice  in  these  respects.  The  unities  of  time 
and  place,  for  example,  are  preserved  in  his  first  two 
plays,  "  Love's  Labour 's  Lost "  and  "  The  Comedy 
of  Errors,"  absolutely;  in  his  third,  "A Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream,"  he  began  that  disregard  of  them 
which  he  observed  throughout  his  career,  and  which 
culminates  in  "  The  Winter's  Tale,"  one  of  his  very 
latest  plays,  in  which  the  very  semblance  of  them  is 
so  disregarded  that  it  affects  to  a  certain  degree  even 
a  reader's  enjoyment  of  it.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
in  "  The  Tempest,"  written  in  the  same  year,  or  at 
least  the  same  twelvemonth,  as  "  The  Winter's  Tale," 
the  unities  of  time  and  place  are  observed  with  a 
strictness  which  cannot  be  surpassed. 

I  do  wrong  to  say  that  they  are  observed,  which 
implies  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  dramatist ;  and 
nothing  is  clearer  to  me,  the  more  I  read  and  re- 


28  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

fleet  upon  his  works,  than  that,  after  his  first  three  or 
four  years'  experience  as  a  poet  and  a  dramatist,  he 
was  entirely  without  even  any  art-purpose  or  aim 
whatever,  and  used  his  materials  just  as  they  came  to 
his  hand,  taking  no  more  pains  with  them  than  he 
thought  necessary  to  work  them  into  a  play  that  would 
please  his  audience  and  suit  his  company;  while  at 
the  same  time,  from  the  necessities  of  his  nature  and 
the  impulse  that  was  within  him,  he  wrought  out  the 
characters  of  his  personages  with  the  knowledge  of  a 
creator  of  human  souls,  and  in  his  poetry  showed  him- 
self the  supremest  master  of  human  utterance.  "  The 
Tempest "  conforms  to  the  unities  of  time  and  place 
merely  because  the  story  made  it  convenient  for  the 
writer  to  observe  them  ;  "  The  Winter's  Tale  "  defies 
them  because  its  story  made  the  observance  of  them 
very  troublesome,  and  indeed  almost,  if  not  quite,  im- 
possible. There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  ingenious 
speculation  about  Shakespeare's  system  of  dramatic 
art.  It  is  all  unfounded,  vague,  and  worthless. 
Shakespeare  had  no  system  of  dramatic  art. 

In  "King  John"  the  true  dramatic  history  first 
appears-.  "  Henry  VI."  is  rather  a  chronicle  dram- 
atized, and  so,  almost,  is  "  Richard  III. ; "  while 
"  Richard  II.,"  as  I  have  before  remarked,  is  a 
tragic  dramatic  poem  founded  upon  historical  events. 
"  King  John  "  presents  the  events  of  a  whole  reign 
—  such  as  were  capable  of  dramatic  treatment  — 
wrought  into  a  dramatic  form,  but  without  any  true 
dramatic  motive,  and  with  a  conclusion  which,  while 
it  is  an  impressive  close  of  the  action,  is  not  a  dra- 
matic catastrophe.  We  know  very  little  of  Shake- 
speare's real  life,  and  still  less  of  the  influence  that 
his  experience  as  a  man  had  upon  his  utterance  as  a 


ON    READING   SHAKESPEARE.  29 

poet ;  but  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  his  only  son  Ham- 
net  died,  at  the  age  of  eleven  years,  in  1596,  and  that 
"  King  John "  was  written  in  that  year.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  lovely  character  of  Arthur  (which  is 
altogether  inconsistent  with  the  facts  of  history)  was 
portrayed,  and  the  touching  lament  of  Constance  for 
his  loss  written,  by  Shakespeare,  with  the  shadow  of 
this  bereavement  upon  his  soul. 

Premising  that  one  at  least  of  the  earlier  comedies 
and  the  earliest  tragedy  are  almost  necessarily  passed 
over,  it  would  be  well  next  to  take  up  "  King  Henry 
IV."  in  its  two  parts,  this  having  been  written  directly 
after  "  King  John."  In  these  plays,  which,  like  "  King 
John,"  are  true  "  histories  "  as  far  as  the  treatment  of 
their  main  incidents  is  concerned,  and  in  the  poetical 
parts  of  which  an  increased  weight  of  thought  and 
momentum  of  utterance  is  observable,  with  a  free- 
dom of  versification  required,  and  to  a  certain  degree 
caused,  by  the  former  qualities,  Shakespeare  introduced 
for  the  first  time  a  representation  of  English  social 
life.  It  was  the  social  life  of  his  own  day ;  for  never 
was  there  less  the  spirit  of  a  literary  antiquarian  than 
in  William  Shakespeare.  He  was  no  more  antiquarian 
than  prophet.  He  showed  things  as  they  were,  or 
rather  as  he  saw  them ;  thoughtless  as  to  the  past,  ex 
cept  as  it  furnished  him  material  for  dramatic  treat- 
ment ;  careless  of  the  future,  because  it  could  give  him 
no  such  help. 

In  "Henry  IV."  we  have  the  highest  manifestation 
of  Shakespeare's  humor ;  but  not  in  Falstaff  only, 
whose  vast  unctuosity  of  mind  as  well  as  body  has, 
to  the  general  eye,  unjustly  cast  his  companions  into 
eclipse.  Prince  Hal  himself  is  no  less  humorous  than 
Falstaff,  while  his  wit  has  a  dignity  and  a  sarcastic 


30  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

edge  not  observable  in  the  fat  knight's  random  and 
reckless  sallies.  Falstaff,  however,  is  peerless  in  a 
great  measure  because  he  is  reckless,  and  because 
Shakespeare,  fully  knowing  the  moral  vileness  of  his 
creature,  had  yet,  as  a  dramatist,  a  perfect  intellectual 
indifference  to  the  character  of  the  personage  by  whom 
he  effected  his  dramatic  purpose.  But  besides  these 
principals,  the  attendants  upon  their  persons  and  the 
satellites  of  their  blazing  intellects,  Pointz,  Bardolph, 
Nym,  Pistol,  Mrs.  Quickly,  Justice  Shallow,  Silence, 
and  the  rest,  form  a  group  which  for  its  presentation 
of  the  humorous  side  of  life  has  never  been  equalled 
in  literature.  It  surpasses  even  the  best  of  "  Don 
Quixote,"  as  intellectual  surpasses  practical  joking. 
This  history,  take  it  all  in  all,  is  the  completest, 
although  far  from  being  the  highest,  exhibition  of 
Shakespeare's  varied  powers  as  poet  and  dramatist. 
No  other  play  shows  his  various  faculties  at  the  same 
time  in  such  number  and  at  such  a  height.  The  great- 
est Falstaff  is  that  of  the  Second  Part.  He  is  in  every 
trait  the  same  as  he  of  Part  First ;  but  his  wit  becomes 
brighter,  his  humor  more  delicate,  richer  in  allusion, 
and  more  highly  charged  with  fun ;  his  impudence 
attains  proportions  truly  heroic. 

As  the  Falstaff  of  Part  Second  of  "  Henry  IV."  is 
the  best,  that  of  "  The  Merry  Wives  "  is  the  least 
admirable  of  all  the  three.  In  this  comedy  the  Fal- 
staff is  comparatively  feeble,  and  the  laughter  pro- 
voked by  the  scenes  in  which  he  appears  is  in  a  great 
measure  due  to  practical  joking.  This  deterioration 
in  the  fat  knight's  quality,  and  in  thatjof-ihe  pleasure 
that  he  gives,  agrees  with  and  supports  the  tradition 
that  the  comedy  was  written  in  compliance  with  the 
request  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  that  Falstaff  should  be 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  31 

shown  in  love.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  man  who  conceived  Falstaff  would,  without  exter- 
nal and  superior  suggestion,  present  him  as  a  lover,  or 
had  conceived  him  as  capable  of  the  amorous  passion ; 
and  his  part  of  this  comedy,  charming  in  other  respects, 
has  all  the  air  of  being  produced  under  constraint. 
"  The  Merry  Wives "  has  the  distinction  and  the 
peculiar  interest  of  being  Shakespeare's  only  comedy 
of  contemporary  social  life,  of  which  we  may  be  sure 
that  he  has  given  a  faithful  representation ;  and  to 
a  desire  to  do  this  may  be  attributed  a  realistic  air 
which  pervades  the  whole  play.  Indeed,  this  is  Shake- 
speare's only  play  in  the  real  school.  We  owe  to 
Queen  Elizabeth's  command,  if  indeed  she  gave  it, 
the  occasion  which  offered  him  an  opportunity  to  show 
that  he  could  surpass  all  other  dramatists  in  the  real 
no  less  than  he  did  in  the  ideal  presentation  of  daily 
life  and  of  human  nature.  This  comedy,  as  we  have 
it  in  the  folio  and  in  subsequent  collected  editions  of 
the  plays,  is  not  as  Shakespeare  first  wrote  it.  His 
first  sketch,  which  has  come  down  to  us,  although 
imperfectly,  shows  unmistakable  marks  of  haste  in 
its  composition.  It  was  greatly  improved  in  the 
revision. 

"  The  Merry  Wives "  leads  our  reader  back  to 
Shakespeare's  early  comedies  of  social  life,  of  which, 
although  he  has  read  all  of  them  once,  he  is  supposed 
to  have  thus  far  studied  only  one,  "  The  Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona,"  its  author's  first  attempt  in  this 
department  of  the  drama.  How  rapidly  Shake- 
speare's power  developed,  both  as  dramatist  and  poet, 
could  not  be  more  clearly  apprehended  than  by  the 
comparison  of  "  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona " 
with  his  next  comedy  of  its  kind,  "  The  Merchant  of 


32  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Venice."  At  most  only  four  or  five  years  —  and  there 
is  some  reason  to  believe  even  less  —  elapsed  between 
the  composition  of  the  former  and  that  of  the  latter 
play.  The  former  is,  for  Shakespeare,  very  weak; 
faulty  in  construction,  crude  in  characterization,  and, 
although  it  contains  some  charming  passages  which 
give  promise  of  the  coming  man,  —  notably  Julia's 
third  speech  in  Act  II.  Sc.  7,  —  tame  in  its  poetry. 
But  it  is  to  be  observed  that,  although  this  is  one  of 
his  earliest  plays,  his  peculiar  mastery  of  blank  verse, 
in  which  the  dialogue  seems  perfectly  easy,  and  as 
natural  as  Monsieur  Jourdain's  prose,  while  its  rhythm 
is  as  marked  as  that  of  a  minuet,  is  shown,  although 
with  intervals,  from  the  first  scene  to  the  last.  Ob- 
serve it  in  Valentine's  and  Proteus's  first  speeches ; 
and  in  the  following  passage,  in  which  the  "  unstopped  " 
lines  and  the  occurrence  in  nine  of  three  with  double 
endings  show  us  that  wo  should  not  trust  too  much  to 
such  tokens  as  a  test  of  the  date  of  composition :  — 

Ant.      Why,  what  of  him  ? 

Panth.  He  wondered  that  your  lordship 

Would  suffer  him  to  spand  his  youth  at  home, 
While  other  men,  of  slender  reputation, 
Put  forth  their  sons  to  seek  preferment  out: 
Some  to  the  wars  to  try  their  fortune  there ; 
Some  to  discover  islands  far  away ; 
Some  to  the  studious  universities. 
For  any  or  for  all  these  exercises 
He  said  that  Proteus,  your  son,  was  meet. 

Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

This  comedy  has  been  pronounced  careless  in  its 
composition.  I  cannot  so  regard  it ;  rather  it  seems 
to  me  labored  and  constrained.  The  reasons  given  are 
chiefly  that  Valentine  is  sent  to  Milan  by  sea,  and  that 
Verona  twice  occurs  in  the  text  where  plainly  Milan 
is  required.  But  so  did  Shakespeare  give  Bohemia  a 
seacoast  in  "  The  Winter's  Tale,"  a  play  written  in 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  33 

his  maturity.  About  geography  Shakespeare  seems  to 
have  known  little  and  cared  less.  And  why  should  it 
have  been  otherwise  ?  As  it  was,  he  knew  more  than 
was  known  to  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  of  his  audi- 
ence. As  to  the  writing  twice  of  Verona  instead  of 
Milan,  it  seems  plainly  a  mere  case  of  heterophemy. 

Careless  or  labored,  however,  "  The  Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona"  stands  low  in  the  list  of  Shakespeare's 
works,  and  he  seems  to  have  risen  almost  at  a  bound 
into  the  period  when  he  produced  the  poetry  of  "  The 
Merchant  of  Venice,"  of  "  Kichard  II.,"  and  of  "  Ko- 
meo  and  Juliet,"  which  were  written  at  about  the  same 
time.  No  more  instructive  study  of  Shakespeare  could 
be  undertaken  than  the  comparison  of  "  The  Merchant 
of  Venice  "  with  "The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona." 
The  differences  most  to  be  noted  are  in  characteriza- 
tion and,  as  to  poetry,  sustained  power.  As  to  the 
former,  compare  Antonio  with  Valentine  or  Sir 
Thurio,  Portia  with  Silvia,  Nerissa  with  Lucetta,  and 
see  how  much  more  clearly  outlined  are  the  former 
than  the  latter ;  how  much  more  vital  their  fibre ; 
how  much  more  brain  they  have  behind  their  eyes. 
Then  look  in  vain  in  the  earlier  play  for  any  figure 
with  which  to  compare  the  fierce,  fawning,  crafty, 
eager,  bloodthirsty  Shylock.  "  The  Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona "  is  a  love-play,  pure  and  simple 
(for  the  friendly  devotion  of  the  two  gentlemen,  a 
common  incident  in  the  romances  of  Shakespeare's 
day,  is  plainly  introduced  merely  for  the  purpose 
of  the  complications  that  it  brings  about)  ;  and  yet 
compare  any  or  all  of  it  with  Scene  2  of  Act  V., 
or  with  the  whole  fifth  act  of  "  The  Merchant  of 
Venice."  The  superior  charm  of  the  latter,  the 
greater  warmth  and  earnestness  of  its  passion,  must 
3 


34  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

be  at  once  apparent  to  the  most  superficial  reader. 
But  the  author's  advance  is  shown  perhaps  more  than 
in  any  other  point  in  the  boldness  and  freedom  with 
which  he  handles  his  material,  and  in  the  skill  shown 
in  the  dramatic  construction  of  his  play.  In  humor 
the  difference  is  not  so  greatly  in  favor  of  the  later 
work.  Launce  and  his  dog  are  little,  if  at  all,  infe- 
rior to  Launcelot  Gobbo.  In  both  this  play  and  its 
predecessor  there  is  a  pair  of  friends ;  but  beware  of 
being  led  by  that  fact  into  the  assumption  that  they 
are  companion  plays,  having  friendship  for  their  cen- 
tral idea,  and  illustrating  it  by  the  opposite  conduct 
of  Proteus  and  Antonio.  Shakespeare  did  not  write 
plays  with  central  ideas ;  and  in  all  such  incidents  as 
those  referred  to  he  merely  followed  the  course  or  the 
indications  of  the  stories  upon  which  he  worked,  as 
will  appear*  in  a  very  marked  manner  in  the  next  play 
that  we  shall  examine. 

About  the  period  of  his  life  when  "  The  Merchant 
of  Venice "  was  produced  Shakespeare's  attention 
seems  to  have  been  chiefly  given  to  Italian  literature, 
then  the  first  and  almost  the  only  national  literature 
in  the  world,  and  the  school  and  the  storehouse  of 
writers  of  other  races.  An  Italian  story  of  a  pair 
of  hapless  lovers,  which  had  been  repeated  in  a  long 
and  tedious  English  ballad  version,  was  taken  by  him 
as  the  plot  and  almost  as  the  substance  of  his  first 
tragedy.  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  was  written  very  soon 
after  "  The  Merchant  of  Venice  ;  "  within  a  year  or  a 
year  and  a  half  of  it.  It  is  in  its  spirit  and  senti- 
ment the  most  youthful  of  all  Shakespeare's  plays,  not 
to  say  of  his  tragedies.  "  Love's  Labour 's  Lost,"  his 
first  play,  is  much  older  in  its  cast  of  thought,  and  al- 
though a  comedy,  much  graver  and  more  sententious 


ON   READING   SHAKESPEARE.  35 

in  style  than  this  tragedy.  This  appearance  of  greater 
youthfulness  of  feeling  in  his  poetry  is  the  result  of  a 
greater  experience  of  life.  It  is  a  sign  that  the  poet 
had  grown  a  few  years  older.  There  is  no  gravity  so 
grave,  no  sententiousness  so  sententious,  no  wisdom 
so  didactic,  as  that  of  an  intelligent  young  man  whose 
twenty-one  or  twenty-two  years  weigh  heavily  upon  his 
consciousness.  About  ten  years  afterward  he  begins 
to  find  out  that  he  and  life  and  the  world  are  young. 
And  so  it  was  that  at  thirty-two  Shakespeare  gave  the 
world  in  a  tragedy,  the  freshest,  sweetest  breath  of 
life's  springtime  that  ever  was  uttered  by  a  poet's  lips. 
It  is  at  least  probable,  however,  that  the  play  as  we 
have  it  in  the  folio  bears  the  marks  of  a  revision  of  an 
earlier  composition.  The  numerous  rhymes  and  the 
occurrence  of  very  young  and  extremely  fanciful  po- 
etry —  such,  for  example,  as  Juliet's  passage  contain- 
ing the  request  that  Romeo  should  be  cut  up  into  little 
stars  (Act  III.  Sc.  2)  —  favor  this  inference. 

Very  many  wise  and  subtle  theories  as  to  Shake- 
speare's purpose  in  this  play  have  been  set  forth  by 
critics  who  engage  in  the  task  of  approfounding 
him.  They  have  discovered  that  he  wished  to  show 
in  Romeo  the  ephemeral  quality  of  one  kind  of  love 
and  the  enduring  quality  of  the  other,  and  how  the 
latter  drives  out  the  former ;  that  the  play  was  in- 
tended as  a  companion  to  "  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  and 
that  the  faithful  Juliet  is  presented  as  an  instructive 
contrast  to  the  faithless  Cressida  ;  and  that  the  moral 
which  the  tragedy  was  written  to  enforce  is,  according 
to  one  view,  the  deference  due  to  the  wishes  of  par- 
ents ;  according  to  the  others,  the  punishment  which 
is  sure  to  fall  upon  those  who  cherish  family  hatred. 
Ingenious  and  pretty,  but  vain  fancies.  All  the  inci- 


36  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

dents  in  the  play  Shakespeare  found  in  the  dreary 
old  ballad,  the  course  of  events  in  which  he  merely 
adopted  without  change  other  than  their  adornment 
with  the  splendor  of  his  thought.  The  Romeo  of  the 
old  ballad  loves  and  changes  his  love  just  as  the  Ro- 
meo of  the  tragedy  does ;  Juliet  is  faithful  there  just 
as  Cressida  is  faithless  in  Chaucer's  poem,  to  which 
Shakespeare  went  for  his  "  Troilus  and  Cressida ;  " 
and  from  the  old  story  in  the  ballad,  and  not  from 
Shakespeare's  mind,  came  any  lesson  of  the  duty  of 
filial  deference  ;  for  there  Juliet  gives  herself  to  the 
enemy  of  her  family  just  as  she  does  in  the  tragedy, 
and  comes  to  the  same  end.  Shakespeare  merely 
dramatized  the  old  ballad  to  make  a  play  to  please  his 
audience,  just  as  any  hack  playwright  might  to-day, 
who  was  engaged  by  a  manager  to  do  a  like  task.  It 
merely  happened  that  he  was  William  Shakespeare, 
and  had  a  peculiar  way  of  doing  such  things.  As  to 
a  moral,  plainly  nothing  was  further  from  Shake- 
speare's thought.  The  tragedy  is  hardly  tragic,  but 
rather  a  dramatic  love-poem  with  a  sad  ending.  There 
are  few  young  men,  and  fewer  young  women,  with  a 
touch  of  sentiment,  who  do  not  lay  down  the  tragedy 
after  a  first  reading  with  the  feeling  that  it  would 
have  been  sweet  to  die  like  Romeo  or  like  Juliet.  Not 
so  do  we,  young  or  old,  read  "  Hamlet,"  "  Macbeth," 
"  Lear,"  "  Othello." 

To  the  second  period  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  life 
belong  his  most  charming  comedies,  "  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing,"  "  Twelfth  Night,"  and  "  As  You  Like  It," 
which,  with  "  The  Merchant  of  Venice,"  are  much 
better  suited  to  representation  than  his  later  dramas 
which  are  ranged  under  this  title.  They  may  well  be 
read  in  this  order  directly  after  "  Romeo  and  Juliet ;  " 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  37 

and  although  they  are  comedies  and  that  is  a  tragedy, 
it  will  be  found  that  they  are  more  thoughtful,  more 
solid,  and  graver.  Shakespeare's  growing  mastery  of 
his  art  may  be  justly  estimated  by  the  comparison  of 
two  personages  in  "Much  Ado  About  Nothing,"  Bene- 
dick and  Beatrice,  with  two  of  the  same  sort,  having 
mentally  and  morally  great  likeness  to  them,  Birone 
and  Rosaline,  in  "  Love's  Labour  's  Lost."  The  plays 
are  separated  in  their  production  by  about  nine  years. 
Benedick  and  Beatrice  are  known  the  whole  world 
over  as  types  of  character,  and  their  speeches  are  fa- 
miliar to  our  ears  and  upon  our  lips.  Birone  and  Ro- 
saline are  known  only  to  students  of  Shakespeare,  and 
they  have  contributed  little  or  nothing  to  the  world's 
common  stock  of  pregnant  phrases. 

The  student  who  proposes  to  enter  upon  the  well- 
worked  field  of  Shakespearean  criticism,  or  to  become 
his  editor,  might  have  his  attention  directed  to  certain 
minute  traits  of  Shakespeare's  versification  in  this 
second  period.  But  to  one  who  only  seeks  to  enjoy 
Shakespeare's  poetry  and  his  dramatic  creations,  and 
to  follow  the  development  of  his  powers,  this  would  be 
dry,  almost  arithmetical,  and  quite  unprofitable  work. 
Nor  can  these  traits  of  mere  external  form  be  relied 
upon  with  reasonable  confidence.  Their  value  as  cri- 
terions  depends  in  a  great  measure  upon  the  theory  of 
probabilities  and  of  chances ;  and  this,  although  it  is 
a  safe  guide  as  to  the  action  of  mankind,  cannot  be 
trusted  as  regards  the  action  of  one  man.  For  in  the 
latter  case  there  enter  into  the  problem  the  indeter- 
minable quantities  of  will,  preference,  deliberate  in- 
tention, passing  freak,  and  unconscious  mood.  We 
may  establish  a  formula  by  which  we  may  determine 
with  reasonable  certainty  how  many  letters  will  be 


38  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

dropped  into  a  certain  post-office  without  addresses,  or 
unsealed,  during  a  year ;  but  we  cannot  in  the  same 
way  determine  how  many  in  like  condition  any  one 
man  has  dropped  in,  or  will  drop  in,  during  the  same 
time  ;  for  we  can  never  be  acquainted  with  all  the  cir- 
cumstances and  impulses  which  influence  his  action. 
Metrical  tests,  of  whatever  kind,  have  a  value  in  the 
establishment  of  the  order  of  production  of  a  poet's 
works ;  but  they  are  secondary  and  accessory,  and 
must  be  considered  only  in  connection  with  all  other 
evidence,  external  and  internal. 

Merely  adding  that  "  King  Henry  V."  may  be  read 
now,  or,  if  the  student  pleases,  immediately  after  the 
Second  Part  of  "  King  Henry  IV.,"  I  shall  pass  to 
the  consideration  of  the  plays  of  the  third  period. 

III.  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD. 
Probably  no  play  of  Shakespeare's,  probably  no 
other  play  or  poem  of  a  high  degree  of  merit,  is  so 
much  neglected  as  "  Troilus  and  Cressida  "is.  I  have 
met  intelligent  readers  of  Shakespeare,  who  thought 
themselves  unusually  well  acquainted  with  his  writ- 
ings, and  who  were  so,  who  understood  him  and  de- 
lighted in  him,  but  who  yet  had  never  read  "  Troilus 
and  Cressida."  They  had,  in  one  way  and  another, 
got  the  notion  that  it  is  a  very  inferior  play,  and  not 
worth  reading,  or  at  least  not  to  be  read  until  after 
they  were  tired  of  all  the  others,  —  a  time  which  had 
not  yet  come.  There  seems  to  be  a  slur  cast  upon 
this  play,  the  reason  of  which  is  its  very  undramatic 
character,  and  the  consequent  non-appearance  of  its 
name  in  theatrical  records.  No  one  has  heard  of  any 
actor's  or  actress's  appearance,  even  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, as  one  of  the  personages  in  "  Troilus  and  Ores- 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  39 

sida."  Its  name  has  not  been  upon  the  play-bills  for 
generations,  though  even  "Love's  Labour 's  Lost "  has 
once  in  a  while  been  performed.  Hence  it  is  almost 
unknown,  except  to  thorough  Shakespearean  readers, 
who  are  very  few;  fewer  now,  in  proportion  to  the 
largely  increased  leisurely  and  instructed  classes,  than 
they  were  two  hundred  years  ago,  much  to  the  shame 
of  our  vaunted  popular  education  and  diffusion  of 
knowledge.  And  yet  this  neglected  drama  is  one  of 
its  author's  great  works ;  in  one  respect  his  greatest. 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida  "  is  Shakespeare's  wisest  play 
in  the  way  of  worldly  wisdom.  It  is  filled  chock  full 
of  sententious  and  in  most  cases  slightly  satirical 
revelations  of  human  nature,  uttered  with  a  felicity  of 
phrase  and  an  impressiveness  of  metaphor  that  make 
each  one  seem  like  a  beam  of  light  shot  into  the  re- 
cesses of  man's  heart.  Such  are  these :  — 

In  the  reproof  of  chance 
Lies  the  true  proof  of  men. 

Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

The  wound  of  peace  is  surety, 
Surety  secure ;  but  modest  doubt  is  call'd 
The  beacon  of  the  wise. 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

What  is  aught,  but  as  't  is  valued  ? 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

'T  is  mad  idolatry 
To  make  the  service  greater  than  the  god. 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

A  stirring  dwarf  we  do  allowance  give 
Before  a  sleeping  giant. 

Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

'T  is  certain  greatness  once  fall'n  out  with  fortune 

Must  fall  out  with  men  too;  what  the  declined  is 

He  shall  as  soon  read  in  the  eyes  of  others 

As  feel  in  his  own  fall ;  for  men,  like  butterflies, 

Show  not  their  mealy  wings  but  to  the  summer; 

And  not  a  man,  for  being  simply  man, 

Hath  any  honour.  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 


40  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Besides  passages  like  these,  there  are  others  of  which 
the  wisdom  is  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  occa- 
sion. One  would  think  that  the  wealth  of  such  a  mine 
would  be  daily  passing  from  mouth  to  mouth  as  the 
current  coin  of  speech ;  and  yet  of  all  Shakespeare's 
acknowledged  plays,  there  are  only  two,  "  The  Comedy 
of  Errors  "  and  "  The  Winter's  Tale,"  which  do  not 
furnish  more  to  our  store  of  familiar  quotations  than 
this  play  does,  rich  though  it  is  with  Shakespeare's 
ripest  thought  and  most  splendid  utterance. 

The  undramatic  character  of  "  Troilus  and  Cressida," 
which  has  been  already  mentioned,  appears  in  its  struc- 
ture, its  personages,  and  its  purpose.  We  are  little 
interested  in  the  fate  of  its  personages,  not  merely  be- 
cause we  know  what  is  to  become  of  them,  for  that  we 
know  in  almost  any  play  which  has  an  historical  sub- 
ject ;  but  the  play  is  constructed  upon  such  a  slight 
plot  that  it  really  has  neither  dramatic  motive  nor 
dramatic  movement.  The  loves  of  Troilus  and 
Cressida  are  of  a  kind  which  are  interesting  only  to 
the  persons  directly  involved  in  them ;  Achilles's 
sulking  is  of  even  less  interest ;  and  the  death  of 
Hector  affects  us  only  like  a  newspaper  announcement 
of  the  death  of  some  distinguished  person,  so  little  is 
he  really  involved  in  the  action  of  the  drama.  There 
is  also  a  singular  lack  of  that  peculiar  characteristic 
of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  style,  the  distinction  and 
discrimination  of  the  individual  traits,  mental  and 
moral,  of  the  various  personages.  Ulysses  is  the  real 
N^  hero  of  the  play,  the  chief,  or  at  least  the  great,  pur- 
pose of  which  is  the  utterance  of  the  Ulyssean  view  of 
life  ;  and  in  this  play  Shakespeare  is  Ulysses,  or  Ulys- 
ses Shakespeare.  In  all  his  other  plays  Shakespeare 
—  because  of  the  vividness  of  his  imagination,  and  be- 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  41 

cause  he  was  putting  into  a  dramatic  form  old  tales 
and  plays  in  which  the  characters  of  his  personages 
were  already  outlined  —  so  lost  his  personal  conscious- 
ness in  the  individuality  of  his  own  creations  that  they 
think  and  feel  as  well  as  act  like  real  men  and  women 
other  than  their  creator,  so  that  we  cannot  truly  say 
of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which  they  express  that 
Shakespeare  says  thus  or  so ;  for  it  is  not  Shakespeare 
who  speaks,  but  they  with  his  lips.  But  in  Ulysses, 
Shakespeare,  acting  upon  a  mere  hint,  filling  up  a 
mere  traditionary  outline,  drew  a  man  of  mature 
years,  of  wide  observation,  of  profoundest  cogitative 
power ;  one  who  knew  all  the  weakness  and  all  the 
wiles  of  human  nature,  and  who  yet  remained  with 
blood  unbittered  and  soul  unsoured,  —  a  man  who  saw 
through  all  shams  and  fathomed  all  motives,  and  who 
yet  was  not  scornful  of  his  kind,  not  misanthropic, 
hardly  cynical  except  in  passing  moods.  And  what 
other  man  could  this  be  than  Shakespeare  himself? 
What  had  he  to  do  when  he  had  passed  forty  years 
but  to  utter  his  own  thoughts  when  he  would  find 
words  for  the  lips  of  Ulysses  ?  And  thus  it  is  that 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida  "  is  Shakespeare's  wisest  play. 
If  we  would  know  what  Shakespeare  thought  of  men 
and  their  motives  after  he  reached  maturity,  we  have 
but  to  read  this  drama.  Drama  it  is,  but  with  what 
other  character  who  shall  say  ?  For,  like  the  world's 
pageant,  it  is  neither  tragedy  nor  comedy,  but  a  tragi- 
comic history,  in  which  the  intrigues  of  amorous  men 
and  light-o'-loves  and  the  brokerage  of  panders  are  in- 
volved with  the  deliberations  of  sages  and  the  strife 
and  the  death  of  heroes. 

The  thoughtful  reader  will   observe   that  Ulysses 
pervades  the  serious  parts  of  the  play,  which  is  all 


42  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Ulyssean  in  its  thought  and  language.  And  this  is 
the  reason,  or  rather  the  fact,  of  the  play's  lack 
of  distinctive  characterization.  For  Ulysses  cannot 
speak  all  the  time  that  he  is  on  the  stage  ;  and  there- 
fore the  other  personages,  such  as  may,  speak  Ulys- 
sean, with,  of  course,  such  personal  allusion  and 
peculiar  trick  or  difference  as  a  dramatist  of  Shake- 
speare's skill  could  not  leave  them  without.  For  ex- 
ample, no  two  men  could  be  more  unlike  in  character 
than  Achilles  and  Ulysses  ;  and  yet  the  former,  hav- 
ing asked  the  latter  what  he  is  reading,  he,  uttering 
his  own  thought,  says  as  follows,  with  the  subsequent 
reply :  — 

Ulyss.  A  strange  fellow  here 

Writes  me  :  ' '  That  man,  how  clearly  ever  parted,* 
How  much  in  having,  or  without  or  in, 
Cannot  make  boast  to  have  that  which  he  hath, 
Nor  feels  not  what  he  owes  but  by  reflection, 
As  when  his  virtues  shining  upon  others 
Heat  them,  and  they  retort  that  heat  again 
To  the  first  giver." 

Acini.  This  is  not  strange,  Ulysses. 

The  beauty  that  is  borne  here  in  the  face 
The  bearer  knows  not,  but  commends  itself 
To  others'  eyes  ;  nor  doth  the  eye  itself, 
That  most  pure  spirit  of  sense,  behold  itself, 
Not  going  from  itself ;  but  eye  to  eye  oppos'd, 
Salutes  each  other  with  each  other's  form, 
For  speculation  turns  not  to  itself 
Till  it  hath  travell'd  and  is  mirror'd  there 
Where  it  may  see  itself.     This  is  not  strange  at  all. 

Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Now  these  speeches  are  made  of  the  same  metal 
and  coined  in  the  same  mint ;  and  they  both  of  them 
have  the  image  and  superscription  of  William  Shake- 
speare. No  words  or  thoughts  could  be  more  unsuited 
to  that  bold,  rude,  bloody  egoist,  "  the  broad  Achilles," 
than  the  subtle,  finely  penetrative  reply  he  makes  to 

l  /.  e.,  gifted,  endowed  with  parts. 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  48 

Ulysses;  but  here  Shakespeare  was  merely  using 
the  Greek  champion  as  a  lay  figure  to  utter  his  own 
thoughts,  which  are  perfectly  in  character  with  the 
son  of  Autolycus.  Ulysses  thus  flows  over  upon  the 
whole  serious  part  of  the  play.  Agamemnon,  Nes- 
tor, vEneas,  and  the  rest  all  talk  alike,  and  all  like 
Ulysses.  That  Ulysses  speaks  for  Shakespeare  will, 
I  think,  be  doubted  by  no  reader  who  has  reached 
the  second  reading  of  this  play  by  the  way  which  I 
have  pointed  out  to  him.  And  why,  indeed,  should 
Ulysses  not  speak  for  Shakespeare,  or  how  could  it  be 
other  than  that  he  should  ?  The  man  who  had  written 
"Hamlet,"  "King  Lear,"  "Othello,"  and  "Macbeth," 
if  he  wished  to  find  Ulysses,  had  only  to  turn  his 
mind's  eye  inward ;  and  thus  we  have  in  this  drama 
Shakespeare's  only  piece  of  introspective  work. 

But  there  is  another  personage  who  gives  character 
to  this  drama,  and  who  is  of  a  very  different  sort. 
Thersites  sits  with  Caliban  high  among  Shakespeare's 
minor  triumphs.  He  was  brought  in  to  please  the 
mob.  He  is  the  Fool  of  the  piece,  fulfilling  the 
functions  of  Touchstone,  and  Launce,  and  Launce- 
lot,  and  Costard  in  other  plays.  As  the  gravediggers 
were  brought  into  "  Hamlet "  for  the  sake  of  the 
groundlings,  so  Thersites  came  into  "  Troilus  and 
Cressida."  As  if  that  he  might  leave  no  form  of 
human  utterance  ungilded  by  his  genius,  Shakespeare 
in  Thersites  has  given  us  the  apotheosis  of  black- 
guardism and  billingsgate.  Thersites  is  only  a  rail- 
ing rascal.  Some  low  types  of  animals  are  mere 
bellies  with  no  brain.  Thersites  is  merely  mouth ; 
but  this  mouth  has  just  enough  coarse  brain  above  it 
to  know  a  wise  man  and  a  fool.  And  the  railings  of 
this  deformed  slave  are  splendid.  Thersites  is  almost 


44  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

as  good  as  Falstaff.  He  is  of  course  a  far  lower  or- 
ganization intellectually,  and  somewhat  lower,  per- 
haps, morally.  He  is  coarser  in  every  way ;  his 
humor,  such  as  he  has,  is  of  the  grossest  kind  ;  but 
still  his  blackguardism  is  the  ideal  of  vituperation. 
He  is  far  better  than  Apemantus  in  "Timon  of 
Athens,"  for  there  is  no  hypocrisy  in  him,  no  egoism, 
and,  comfortable  trait  in  such  a  personage,  no  pre- 
tence of  gentility.  For  good  downright  "  sass  "  in  its 
most  splendid  and  aggressive  form,  there  is  in  litera- 
ture nothing  equal  to  the  speeches  of  Thersites. 

"  Troilus  and  Cressida  "  is  also  remarkable  for  its 
wide  range  of  style;  because  of  which  it  is  a  play 
of  great  interest  to  the  student  of  Shakespeare,  who 
here  adapted  his  style  to  the  character  of  the  matter 
in  hand.  The  lighter  parts  remind  us  of  his  earlier 
manner  ;  the  graver  are  altogether  in  his  later.  He 
did  this  unconsciously,  or  almost  unconsciously,  we 
may  be  sure.  None  the  less,  however,  is  the  play 
therefore  valuable  in  a  critical  point  of  view,  but 
rather  the  more  so.  It  is  a  standing  and  an  un- 
deniable warning  to  us  not  to  lean  too  much  upon  any 
one  special  trait  of  style  in  estimating  the  time  in 
Shakespeare's  life  at  which  a  play  was  produced. 
Moreover,  it  illustrates  the  natural  course  of  style 
development,  showing  that  it  is  not  only  gradual,  but 
not  by  regular  degrees ;  that  is,  that  a  writer  does 
not  pass  at  one  period  absolutely  from  one  style  to 
another,  dropping  his  previous  manner  and  taking 
on  another,  but  that  he  will  at  one  time  unconsciously 
recur  to  his  former  manner  or  manners,  and  at  a  late 
period  show  traces  of  his  early  manner.  Strata  of 
his  old  fashion  thrust  themselves  up  through  the 
newer  formation.  "  Troilus  and  Cressida  "  is  so  re- 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  45 

markable  in  this  respect  that  the  chief  of  the  abso- 
lute-period critics,  the  Kev.  Mr.  Fleay,  has  been 
obliged  to  invent  a  most  extraordinary  theory  to  ac- 
count for  it.  His  view  is  that  there  are  three  plots 
interwoven,  each  of  which  is  distinct  in  manner  of 
treatment,  and,  moreover,  that  each  of  these  was 
composed  at  a  different  time  from  the  other  two.  He 
would  have  us  believe  that  the  parts  embodying  the 
Troilus  and  Cressida  story  were  written  not  only  in 
Shakespeare's  earliest  manner,  but  in  his  earliest  pe- 
riod, those  concerning  Hector  in  his  middle  period, 
and  the  Ajax  parts  in  the  last.  That  these  three 
stories  were  interwoven  is  manifest;  but  they  came 
naturally  together  in  this  Greek  historical  play,  — 
for  it  is  that,  —  and  their  interweaving  was  hardly  to 
have  been  avoided ;  the  manner  of  each  is  not  dis- 
tinct from  that  of  the  other,  although  there  is,  with 
likeness,  a  noticeable  unlikeness.  But  the  notion  that 
therefore  Shakespeare  first  wrote  the  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida part  as  a  play,  and  then  years  afterward  added 
the  Hector  part,  and  again  years  afterward  the  Ajax 
and  Ulysses  part,  seems  to  me  only  a  monstrous  con- 
trivance of  an  honest  and  able  man  in  desperate 
straits  to  make  his  theory  square  with  fact.  As  to 
detail  upon  this  subject,  I  shall  only  make  one  point. 
Tag-rhymes,  or  rhymed  couplets  ending  a  scene  or 
a  speech  in  blank  verse  or  in  prose,  are  regarded  by 
the  metre-critics  (and  within  reason  justly)  as  marks 
of  an  early  date  of  composition.  Now  in  "Troilus 
and  Cressida "  these  abound.  It  contains  more  of 
them  than  any  other  play,  except  one  or  two  of  the 
very  earliest.  The  important  point,  however,  is  that 
these  rhymes  appear  no  less  in  the  Ulysses  and  Ajax 
scenes  of  the  play  than  in  the  others,  —  a  sufficient 


46  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

warning  against  putting  absolute  trust  in  such  evi- 
dence. 

Among  those  few  of  Shakespeare's  plays  which 
are  least  often  read  is  "  All 's  Well  that  Ends  Well." 
This  one,  however,  is  to  the  earnest  student  one  of 
the  most  interesting  of  the  thirty-seven  which  bear 
his  name ;  not  only  because  it  contains  some  of  his 
best  and  most  thoughtful  work,  but  because,  being 
Shakespeare's  all  through,  it  is  written  in  two  dis- 
tinct styles,  —  styles  so  distinct  that  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  it  is  the  prod- 
uct of  two  distinct  periods  of  his  dramatic  life,  and 
those  the  most  distant,  the  first  and  the  last.  Its 
singularity  in  this  respect  gives  it  a  peculiar  value  to 
the  student  of  Shakespeare's  style  and  of  his  mental 
development.  There  is  not  an  interweaving  of  styles, 
as  in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida ; "  the  two  are  distinctly 
separable,  and  there  is  external  historical  evidence 
which  supports  the  internal. 

We  have  a  record  in  Francis  Meres's  "  Palladis 
Tamia "  of  a  play  by  Shakespeare  called  "  Love's 
Labour 's  Won  ;  "  and  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that 
that  was  the  first  name  of  "  All 's  Well  that  Ends 
Well."  As  the  "  Palladis  Tamia  "  was  published  in 
1598,  this  play  was  produced  before  that  year,  and  all 
the  evidence,  internal  and  external,  goes  to  show  that 
Shakespeare  wrote  it  soon  after  "  Love's  Labour 's 
Lost,"  and  as  a  counterpart  to  that  comedy.  The 
difference  of  its  style  in  various  parts  had  been  re- 
marked upon  in  general  terms  ;  but  I  believe  that  this 
difference  was  first  specially  indicated  in  the  following 
passage,  which  I  cannot  do  better  here  than  to  quote 
from  the  introduction  to  my  edition  of  the  play  pub- 
lished in  1857 ;  and  I  do  so  with  the  greater  freedom 


ON  READING   SHAKESPEARE.  47 

because  the  particular  traits  which  it  discriminated 
have  since  been  insisted  upon  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Fleay, 
in  his  very  useful  and  suggestive,  but  not  altogether 
to  be  trusted,  "  Shakespeare  Manual," l  to  which  I 
have  before  referred. 

"It  is  to  be  observed  that  passages  of  rhymed  coup- 
lets, in  which  the  thought  is  somewhat  constrained  and 
its  expression  limited  by  the  form  of  the  verse,  are 
scattered  freely  through  the  play,  and  that  these  are 
found  side  by  side  with  passages  of  blank  verse,  in 
which  the  thought,  on  the  contrary,  so  entirely  domi- 
nates the  form,  and  overloads  and  weighs  it  down,  as 
to  produce  the  impression  that  the  poet,  in  writing 
them,  was  almost  regardless  of  the  graces  of  his  art, 
and  merely  sought  an  expression  of  his  ideas  in  the 
most  compressed  and  elliptical  form.  The  former 
trait  is  characteristic  of  his  youthful  style  ;  the  latter 
marks  a  certain  period  of  his  niaturer  years.  Con- 
tracted words,  which  Shakespeare  used  more  freely  in 
his  later  than  in  his  earlier  works,  abound ;  and  in 
some  passages  words  are  used  in  an  esoteric  sense, 
which  is  distinctive  of  the  poet's'  style  about  the  time 
when  4  Measure  for  Measure  '  was  produced.  Note, 
for  instance,  the  use  of  '  succeed '  in  '  owe  and  succeed 
thy  weakness,'  in  Act  II.  Sc.  4  of  that  play,  and  in 
6  succeed  thy  father  in  manners,'  Act  I.  Sc.  1  of  this. 
It  is  to  be  observed  also  that  the  advice  given  by  the 
Countess  to  Bertram  when  he  leaves  Rousillon  is  so 
like  that  of  Polonius  to  Laertes  in  a  similar  situation 
that  either  the  latter  is  an  expansion  of  the  former,  or 
the  former  a  reminiscence  of  the  latter ;  and  as  the 

1  Published  in  1876.  The  author  has  also  been  led  to  the  same  conclu- 
sions in  regard  to  the  text  of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  which  I  set  forth 
in  detail  in  1857. 


48  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

passage  is  written  in  the  later  style,  the  second  suppo- 
sition appears  the  more  probable.  Finally,  it  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  both  the  French  officers  who  figure  in 
this  play  as  First  Lord  and  Second  Lord  are  some- 
what strangely  named  Dumain,  and  that  in  '  Love's 
Labour 's  Lost '  Dumain  is  also  the  name  of  that  one  of 
the  three  attendants  and  brothers  in  love  of  the  King 
who  has  a  post  in  the  army ;  which,  when  taken  in 
connection  with  other  circumstances,  is  at  least  a  hint 
of  some  relation  between  the  two  plays." 

If  the  reader  who  has  gone  thoughtfully  through  the 
plays  in  the  course  which  I  have  indicated  will  take 
up  this  one,  he  will  find  in  the  very  first  scene  evi- 
dence and  illustration  of  these  views.  It  is  almost 
entirely  in  prose,  which  itself  shows  the  weight  of 
Shakespeare's  mature  hand.  The  first  blank  verse  is 
the  speech  of  the  Countess,  in  which  she  gives  a 
mother's  counsel  to  Bertram  as  he  is  setting  out  for 
the  wars,  as  is  pointed  ont  above,  and  which  is  un- 
mistakably of  the  "  Hamlet "  period.  Then  comes  a 
speech  by  Helen  beginning,  — 

O  were  that  all !     I  think  not  on  my  father: 

And  these  great  tears  grace  his  remembrance  more 

Than  those  I  shed  for  him, 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

and  ending  with  this  charming  passage,  referring  to 
the  growth  of  her  love  for  Bertram  :  — 

'T  was  pretty,  though  a  plague, 
To  see  him  every  hour;  to  sit  and  draw 
His  arched  brows,  his  hawking  eye,  his  curls, 
In  our  heart's  table;  heart  too  capable 
Of  every  line  and  trick  of  his  sweet  favour: 
But  now  he 's  gone,  and  my  idolatrous  fancy 
Must  sanctify  his  reliques.     Who  comes  here  ? 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

It  is  needless  to  say  to  the  advanced  student  of 


ON   READING  SHAKESPEARE.  49 

Shakespeare's  style  that  this  is  in  his  later  manner. 
A  little  further  on  is  Helen's  speech  to  the  detestable 
Parolles,  beginning  with  the  mutilated  line,  "  Not  my 
virginity  yet,"  which  is  followed  by  some  ten,  in  which 
she  pours  out  in  Euphuistic  phrase  her  love  for  Ber- 
tram, saying  that  he  has  in  her  "  a  mother,  and  a  mis- 
tress, and  a  friend,  a  counsellor,  a  traitress,  and  a 
dear  ; "  and  yet  further,  — 

His  humble  ambition,  proud  humility, 
His  jarring  concord,  and  his  discord  dulcet, 
His  faith,  his  sweet  disaster,  with  a  world 
Of  pretty,  fond,  adoptious  Christendoms 
That  blinking  Cupid  gossips. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

This  will  remind  the  reader  of  Scott's  Euphuist,  Sii 
Piercie  Shafton,  who,  if  I  remember  aright,  uses  some 
of  these  very  phrases,  in  which  Shakespeare  has  beaten 
Lilly  at  his  own  weapons,  and  made  his  affected 
phraseology  the  vehicle  of  the  touching  utterance  of 
real  feeling.  "  Euphues "  was  published  in  1580, 
when  Shakespeare  was  only  sixteen  years  old;  and 
this  passage,  although  it  may  have  been  written  or 
perhaps  altered  later,  was  probably  a  part  of  the  play 
as  it  was  first  produced.  The  scene  ends  with  the  fol- 
lowing speech  by  Helen,  which,  for  its  peculiar  char- 
acteristics, is  worth  quoting  entire.  The  reader  who 
will  compare  it  with  "  Love's  Labour 's  Lost"  and  "  A 
Midsummer  -  Night's  Dream  "  will  have  not  a  mo- 
ment's doubt  as  to  the  time  when  it  was  written :  — 

Our  remedies  oft  in  ourselves  do  lie 
Which  we  ascribe  to  heaven  :  the  fated  sky 
Gives  us  free  scope,  only  doth  backward  pull 
Our  slow  designs  when  we  ourselves  are  dull. 
What  power  is  it  which  mounts  my  love  so  high, 
That  makes  me  see  and  cannot  feed  mine  eye? 
The  mightiest  space  in  fortune  nature  brings 
To  join  like  likes  and  kiss  like  native  things. 
4 


50  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Impossible  be  strange  attempts  to  those 

That  weigh  their  pains  in  sense  and  do  suppose 

What  hath  been  cannot  be  :  whoever  strove 

To  show  her  merit  that  did  miss  her  love  ? 

The  king's  disease  —  my  project  may  deceive  me, 

But  my  intents  are  fix'd  and  will  not  leave  me. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Besides  its  formal  construction  and  its  rhyme,  this 
passage  is  overmuch  afflicted  with  youngness  of  thought 
to  be  accepted  as  the  product  of  any  other  than  Shake- 
speare's very  earliest  period.  Of  like  quality  to  this 
are  other  passages  scattered  through  the  play.  For 
example,  the  Countess's  speech,  Act  I.  Sc.  3,  begin- 
ning, "  Even  so  it  was  with  me ; "  all  the  latter  part 
of  Act  II.  Sc.  1,  from  Helen's  speech,  "  What  I  can 
do,"  etc.,  to  the  end,  seventy  lines ;  passages  in  the 
third  scene  of  this  act,  which  the  reader  cannot  now 
fail  at  once  to  detect  for  himself ;  Helen's  letter,  Act 
III.  Sc.  4,  and  Parolles's,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3 ;  and  various 
passages  in  the  last  act.  Shakespeare,  I  have  no  doubt, 
wrote  this  play  at  first  nearly  all  in  rhyme  in  the  earli- 
est years  of  his  dramatic  life,  and  afterward,  late  in 
his  career,  possibly  on  two  occasions,  re-wrote  it  and 
gave  it  a  new  name ;  using  prose,  to  save  time  and 
labor,  in  those  passages  the  elevation  of  which  did  not 
require  poetical  treatment,  and  in  those  which  were 
suited  to  such  treatment  giving  us  true  although  not 
highly  finished  specimens  of  his  grand  style. 

The  thoughtful  reader  who,  having  followed  the 
course  previously  marked  out,  comes  to  the  study  of 
"  Hamlet,"  "  King  Lear,"  and  "  Othello  "  needs  me 
no  longer  as  a  guide,  but  is  prepared  to  apprehend 
them  justly,  not  only  in  their  own  greatness,  but  in 
their  relative  position  as  the  product  of  their  author's 
mind  in  its  perfected  and  disciplined  maturity,  —  as 
the  splendid  triple  crown  of  Shakespeare's  genius. 


ON    READING   SHAKESPEARE.  51 

No  other  dramatist,  no  other  poet,  has  given  the  world 
anything  that  can  for  a  moment  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration as  equal  to  these  tragedies ;  and  Shake- 
speare himself  left  us  nothing  equal  to  any  one  of 
them,  taken  as  a  whole  and  in  detail.  The  Roman 
plays,  "  Coriolanus,"  "  Julius  Caesar,"  and  "  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,"  particularly  the  last,  should  now  re- 
ceive his  careful  attention.  In  "  The  Winter's  Tale," 
"  The  Tempest,"  and  "  Henry  VIII."  he  will  find  the 
very  last  productions  of  Shakespeare's  pen,  and  in 
the  first  and  the  third  of  these  he  will  find  marks  of 
hasty  work  both  in  the  versification  and  in  the  con- 
struction ;  but  the  touch  of  the  master  is  unmistakable 
quite  through  them  all,  and  "  The  Tempest "  is  one 
of  the  most  perfect  of  his  works  in  all  respects.  No 
true  lover  of  Shakespeare  should  neglect  the  "Son- 
nets," although  many  do  neglect  them.  They  are  in- 
ferior to  the  plays ;  but  only  to  the  best  parts  of  them. 
As  to  helps  to  the  understanding  of  Shakespeare, 
those  who  can  understand  him  at  all  need  none  except 
a  good  critical  edition.  And  by  a  good  critical  edi- 
tion I  mean  only  one  which  gives  a  good  text,  with 
notes  where  they  are  needed  upon  obscure  construc- 
tions, obsolete  words  or  phrases,  manners  and  customs, 
and  the  like.  Of  the  plays  in  the  Clarendon  Press 
selected  series,1  better  editions  cannot  be  had,  partic- 
ularly for  readers  inexperienced  in  verbal  criticism. 
Those  who  find  any  difficulty  which  the  notes  to 
those  editions  do  not  explain  may  be  pretty  sure 
that,  with  the  exception  of  a  very  few  passages  the 
corruption  of  which  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  the 
trouble  is  not  with  Shakespeare  or  the  editor.  Shake- 

1  Including,  I  believe,  The  Tempest,  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream, 
The  Merchant  of  Venice,  As  You  Like  It,  Richard  II.,  Henry  V., 
Richard  III.,  Coriolanus,  Julius  Coesar,  Macbeth,  Hamlet,  and  King 
Lear. 


52  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

speare  read  in  the  way  which  I  have  indicated, 
and  with  the  help  of  such  an  edition,  has  a  high 
educating  value,  and  in  particular  will  give  the  reader 
an  insight  into  the  English  language,  if  not  a  mastery 
of  it,  that  is  worth  a  course  of  all  the  text-books  of 
grammar  and  rhetoric  that  have  been  written  ten  times 
over. 

Of  criticism  of  what  has  been  called  the  higher 
kind,  I  recommend  the  reading  of  very  little,  or  bet- 
ter, none  at  all.  Read  Shakespeare  ;  seek  aid  to  un- 
derstand his  language,  if  that  be  in  any  way  obscure 
to  you  ;  but  that  once  comprehended,  apprehension  of 
his  purpose  and  meaning  will  come  untold  to  those 
who  can  attain  it  in  any  way.  In  my  own  edition  I 
avoided  as  much  as  possible  the  introduction  of  aesthetic 
criticism,  not  because  of  its  difficulty,  for  it  is  easy  and 
alluring  work  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  availed  myself  of  it 
when  it  was  necessary  as  an  aid  to  the  settlement  of 
the  text,  or  of  like  questions  ;  and  by  its  use  I  ven- 
ture to  think  that  I  succeeded  in  establishing  some 
points  of  importance.  But  in  my  judgment  the  duty 
of  an  editor  is  performed  when  he  puts  the  reader, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  in  the  same  position  for  the  ap- 
prehension of  his  author's  meaning  that  he  would 
have  occupied  if  he  had  been  contemporary  with  him 
and  had  received  from  him  a  correct  copy  of  his  writ- 
ings. More  than  this  seems  to  me  to  verge  upon 
impertinence. 

Upon  this  point  I  find  myself  supported  by  William 
Aldis  Wright,1  who  is  in  my  judgment  the  ablest  of 
all  the  living  editors  of  Shakespeare ;  who  brings  to 
his  task  a  union  of  scholarship,  critical  judgment,  and 

1  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  one  of  the  editors  of  the 
Cambridge  edition. 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  53 

common  sense  which  is  very  rare  in  any  department 
of  literature,  and  particularly  in  Shakespearean  criti- 
cism ;  and  whose  labors  in  this  department  of  letters 
are  small  and  light  in  comparison  with  the  graver 
studies  in  which  he  is  constantly  engaged.  He,  in  the 
preface  to  his  edition  of  "  King  Lear  "  in  the  Claren- 
don Press  series,  says,  "  It  has  been  objected  to  the 
editions  of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  the  Clarendon  Press 
series  that  the  notes  are  too  exclusively  of  a  verbal 
character,  and  that  they  do  not  deal  with  aesthetic,  or, 
as  it  is  called,  the  higher  criticism.  So  far  as  I  have 
had  to  do  with  them,  I  frankly  confess  that  aesthetic 
notes  have  been  deliberately  and  intentionally  omitted, 
because  one  main  object  in  these  editions  is  to  induce 
those  for  whom  they  are  especially  designed  to  read 
and  study  Shakespeare  himself,  and  not  to  become 
familiar  with  opinions  about  him.  Perhaps,  too,  it  is 
because  I  cannot  help  experiencing  a  certain  feeling 
of  resentment  when  I  read  such  notes  that  I  am  un- 
willing to  intrude  upon  others  what  I  should  regard 
myself  as  impertinent.  They  are  in  reality  too  per- 
sonal and  objective,  and  turn  the  commentator  into  a 
showman.  With  such  sign-post  criticism  I  have  no 
sympathy.  Nor  do  I  wish  to  add  to  the  awful  amaze- 
ment which  must  possess  the  soul  of  Shakespeare  when 
he  knows  of  the  manner  in  which  his  works  have  been 
tabulated  and  classified  and  labelled  with  a  purpose, 
after  the  most  approved  method,  like  modern  tendenz- 
schriften.  Such  criticism  applied  to  Shakespeare  is 
nothing  less  than  gross  anachronism." 

Not  a  little  of  the  Shakespearean  criticism  of  this 
kind  that  exists  is  the  mere  result  of  an  effort  to  say 
something  fine  about  what  needs  no  such  gilding,  no 
such  prism-play  of  light  to  enhance  or  to  bring  out  its 


64  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

beauties.  I  will  not  except  from  these  remarks  much 
of  what  Coleridge  himself  has  written  about  Shake- 
speare. But  the  German  critics  whom  he  emulated 
are  worse  than  he  is.  Avoid  them.  The  German  pre- 
tence that  Germans  have  taught  us  folk  of  English 
blood  and  speech  to  understand  Shakespeare  is  the 
most  absurd  and  arrogant  that  could  be  set  up.  Shake- 
speare owes  them  nothing  ;  and  we  have  received  from 
them  little  more  than  some  maundering  mystification 
and  much  ponderous  platitude.  Like  the  western 
diver,  they  go  down  deeper  and  stay  down  longer  than 
other  critics,  but  like  him  too  they  come  up  muddier. 
Above  all  of  them,  avoid  Ulrici  and  Gervinus.  The 
first  is  a  mad  mystic,  the  second  a  very  literary  Dog- 
berry, endeavoring  to  comprehend  all  vagrom  men, 
and  bestowing  his  tediousness  upon  the  world  with  a 
generosity  that  surpasses  that  of  his  prototype.  Both 
of  them  thrust  themselves  and  their  "  fanned  and  win- 
nowed opinions  "  upon  him  in  such  an  obtrusive  way 
that,  if  he  could  come  upon  the  earth  again  and  take 
his  pen  in  his  hand,  I  would  not  willingly  be  in  the 
shoes  of  either.  He  would  hand  them  down  to  pos- 
terity the  laughing-stock  of  men  forever. 

Not  Shakespeare  only  has  suffered  from  this  sort  of 
criticism.  The  great  musicians  fare  ill  at  their  hands. 
One  of  them,  Schliiter,  writing  of  Mozart,  says  of  his 
E  flat,  G  minor,  C  (Jupiter)  symphonies,  — 

It  is  evident  that  these  three  magnificent  works  —  produced 
consecutively  and  at  short  intervals  —  are  the  embodiment  of  one 
train  of  thought  pursued  with  increasing  ardor  ;  so  that  taken 
as  a  whole  they  form  a  grand  trilogy.  .  .  .  These  three  grandest  of 
Mozart's  symphonies  (the  first  lyrical,  the  second  tragic-pathetic, 
and  the  third  of  ethical  import)  correspond  to  his  three  greatest 
operas,  "Figaro,"  "Don  Giovanni,"  and  "  Die  Zauberflb'te." 

Now,  I  venture  to  say  that  there  is  no  such  consec- 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  55 

utive  train  of  thought,  and  no  such  correspondence. 
Ethical  import  in  the  Jupiter  and  in  the  "  Zauber- 
flb'te,"  and  correspondence  between  them !  Mozart 
did  not  evolve  musical  camels  out  of  his  moral  con- 
sciousness. But  a  German  professor  of  Esthetik  is 
not  happy  until  he  has  discovered  a  trilogy  and  an 
inner  life.  Those  found,  he  goes  off  with  ponderous 
serenity  into  the  EwigJceit. 

I  have  been  asked,  apropos  of  these  articles,  to  give 
some  advice  as  to  the  formation  of  Shakespeare  clubs. 
The  best  thing  that  can  be  done  about  that  matter  is 
to  let  it  alone  entirely.  According  to  my  observation, 
Shakespeare  clubs  do  not  afford  their  members  any 
opportunities  of  study  or  even  of  enjoyment  of  his 
works  which  are  not  attainable  otherwise.  And  how 
should  they  do  so,  except  by  the  formation  of  libraries 
for  the  use  of  their  members  ?  In  this  respect  they 
may  be  of  some  use,  but  not  of  much.  Few  books,  a 
very  few,  are  necessary  for  the  intelligent  and  earnest 
student  of  Shakespeare,  and  those  almost  every  such 
student  can  obtain  for  himself.  As  I  have  said,  a 
good  critical  edition  is  all  that  is  required ;  and  who- 
ever desires  to  wander  into  the  wilderness  of  Shake- 
spearean commentary  will  find  in  the  public  libraries 
ample  opportunities  of  doing  so.  I  have  observed 
that  those  who  read  Shakespeare  most  and  understand 
him  best  do  not  use  even  critical  editions,  except  for 
occasional  reference,  but  take  the  text  by  itself,  pure 
and  simple.  An  edition  with  a  good  text,  brief  intro- 
ductions to  each  play,  giving  only  ascertained  facts, 
and  a  few  notes,  glossological  and  historical,  at  the 
foot  of  the  page,  is  still  a  desideratum.1  Quiet  read- 

1  Since  the  first  publication  of  these  studies  an  attempt  has  been  made  to 
supply  this  need,  in  the  Riverside  Shakespeare. 


56  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

ing  with  such  an  edition  as  this  at  hand  will  do  more 
good  than  all  the  Shakespeare  clubs  ever  established 
have  done.  I  have  seen  something  of  such  associa- 
tions, and  I  have  observed  in  them  a  tendency  on  the 
one  hand  to  a  feeble  and  fussy  literary  antiquarianism, 
and  on  the  other  to  conviviality ;  a  thing  not  bad  in 
itself,  and  indeed,  within  bounds,  much  better  than  the 
other,  but  which  has  as  little  to  do  as  that  has  (and  it 
could  not  have  less)  with  an  intelligent  study  of  Shake- 
speare, although  upon  after  reflection  it  may  assist  in 
the  sympathetic  apprehension  of  Sir  Toby  Belch  and 
Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek.  There  is  hardly  anything 
less  admirable  to  a  reasonable  creature  than  the  as- 
semblage at  stated  times  of  a  number  of  semi-literary 
people  to  potter  over  Shakespeare  and  display  before 
each  other  their  second-hand  enthusiasm  about  "  the 
bard  of  Avon,"  as  they  generally  delight  to  call  him. 
Now,  a  true  lover  of  Shakespeare  never  calls  him  the 
bard  of  Avon,  or  a  bard  of  anything ;  and  he  reads 
him  o'  nights  and  ponders  over  him  o'  days  while  he  is 
walking,  or  smoking,  or  at  night  again  while  he  is  wak- 
ing in  his  bed.  If  he  cannot  afford  to  buy  a  copy  off- 
hand, he  saves  up  his  pennies  till  he  can  get  one,  and 
he  does  not  trouble  himself  about  the  commentators 
or  the  mulberry-tree.  He  would  not  give  twopence 
to  sit  in  a  chair  made  of  it ;  for  he  knows  that  he 
could  not  tell  it  from  any  other  chair,  and  that  it 
would  not  help  him  to  understand  or  to  enjoy  one 
line  in  "  Hamlet,"  or  "  Lear,"  or  "  Othello,"  or  "  As 
You  Like  It,"  or  "  The  Tempest." 

These  remarks  have  no  reference,  of  course,  to  such 
societies  as  the  Shakespeare  Societies  of  London,  past 
and  present.  They  are  associations  of  scholars  for  the 
purpose  of  original  investigations,  which  they  print 


ON  READING  SHAKESPEARE.  57 

for  the  use  of  their  subscribers,  and  for  the  republica- 
tion  of  valuable  and  scarce  books  and  papers  having 
a  bearing  upon  Shakespeare  and  the  literary  history 
of  his  time.  We  have  no  such  material  in  this  coun- 
try. Whoever  wishes  to  go  profoundly  into  the  study 
of  Shakespearean,  or  rather  of  Elizabethan,  literature 
would  do  well  to  obtain  a  set  of  the  old  Shakespeare 
Society's  publications,  and  to  become  a  subscriber  to 
the  other  Shakespeare  Society,  which  is  doing  good 
thorough  work.  Clubs  might  well  be  formed  for  the 
obtaining  of  these  books  and  others,  for  the  use  of 
their  members  who  cannot  afford  or  who  do  not  care 
to  buy  them  for  their  own  individual  property ;  al- 
though a  book  really  owned  is,  I  cannot  say  exactly 
why,  worth  more  to  a  reader  than  one  belonging  to 
some  one  else.  But  all  other  Shakespeare  clubs  are 
mere  vanity.  The  true  Shakespeare  lover  is  a  club 
unto  himself. 


THE  LADY  GRUACH'S  HUSBAND. 


SOME  years  ago,  before  monitors  or  even  iron-clad 
ships  were  thought  of,  the  gigantic  man-of-war  Penn- 
sylvania lay  at  the  Washington  Navy  Yard,  soon  to 
become  as  useless  in  war  as  a  giant,  and  to  seem  al- 
most as  fabulous.  Much  had  been  expected  of  her ; 
and  her  colossal  size  and  her  enormous  battery  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty  heavy  guns  were  looked  upon 
with  pride  by  all  "true  Americans."  It  was  deter- 
mined that  the  President  of  the  United  States,  accom- 
panied by  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  the  principal 
officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  and  other  persons  of 
like  official  distinction,  slibuld  visit  her  for  an  "in- 
augural "  entertainment,  and  that  in  honor  of  the  occa- 
sion he  and  they  should  be  saluted  by  the  discharge  of 
all  her  guns.  The  gentlemen  were  accompanied  by  a 
large  number  of  ladies ;  and  a  party  more  numerous 
and  representative  was  probably  never  gathered  on  the 
decks  of  a  national  vessel.  The  salute  began,  and  the 
discharge  of  the  heavy  ordnance,  rapid,  regular,  and 
continuous,  produced  a  remarkable  effect  on  the  civilian 
visitors.  Very  soon  the  men  were  stunned  or  worried, 
and  showed  strong  symptoms  of  nervous  anxiety.  The 
women,  on  the  contrary,  to  the  surprise  of  all,  showed 
110  fear,  but  rather  delight,  and  were  cheerfully  ex- 
cited, not  concealing  an  inclination  to  laugh  at  and 
crow  over  the  nervous  weakness  of  their  masculine 


THE  LADY  GRUACH's  HUSBAND.  59 

companions.  The  firing  went  on,  and  became  a  pro- 
tracted and  apparently  endless  series  of  tremendous 
explosions.  For  the  discharge  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  guns  at  intervals  of  only  three  seconds  occupies 
eight  minutes  (counting  one  second  for  the  fire) ; 
and  eight  minutes,  measured  by  four-second  counts, 
even  in  silence,  seem  as  if  they  would  never  end.  But 
when,  as  in  this  case,  each  period  is  marked  by  a  roar 
that  stuns  the  ears,  and  a  concussion  that  shakes  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  and  fills  the  air  with  flame  and 
smoke,  the  performance  becomes  oppressive  and  tries 
nervous  endurance  to  the  utmost.  And  on  this  occa- 
sion a  striking  natural  phenomenon,  full  of  moral  sig- 
nificance, was  presented  to  the  curious  student  of 
human  nature.  It  was  observed  that,  as  gun  followed 
gun,  the  men,  who  were  so  disturbed  at  first,  became 
quiet,  self-possessed,  indifferent,  and  at  last  cheerful ; 
while  the  women,  who  at  first  were  so  filled  with  life 
and  gayety,  soon  showed  signs  of  weariness,  then  of 
nervous  excitement,  and  finally  of  terror,  looking  for- 
ward with  dread  to  the  inevitable  and  regularly  re- 
curring shock :  so  that  before  the  salute  was  over  most 
of  them  were  in  a  state  of  extreme  distress,  some  were 
hysterical,  and  some  had  fainted.  Their  nerves  could 
bound  with  elasticity  at  a  single  fillip,  but  succumbed 
under  repeated  blows;  while  the  masculine  nature 
toughened  under  resistance  to  the  protracted  strain. 

This  modern  instance  helps  us  to  understand  the 
story  of  a  woman  whose  life  and  actions,  with  those  of 
a  man  whose  name  would  have  been  unknown  to  the 
world  but  for  his  connection  with  her,  fill  an  interest- 
ing chapter  in  the  traditional  history  of  Scotland. 
Her  name  was  Gruach,  and  she  came  of  a  family  whose 


60  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

strong  and  grasping  hands  had  made  them  what  was 
then  called  noble.  There  is  reason  for  believing  that 
she  was  very  beautiful,  and  yet  more  for  the  assurance 
that  she  had  in  a  rare  degree  those  winning  ways  and 
womanly  wiles  that  give  the  weaker  half  of  mankind 
so  much  influence  for  good  or  evil  over  the  stronger. 
Unimaginative,  without  tenderness,  with  a  cruel,  re- 
morseless nature  and  a  bright,  clear  intellect  that  saw 
at  once  the  end  that  she  desired  and  the  means  of  its 
attainment,  she  was  a  type  of  those  female  politicians 
who  in  the  past  ages  of  the  world's  moral  rudeness 
have  sought,  and,  by  intrigue,  by  suggestion,  and  by 
the  stimulus  of  sexual  temptation  and  feminine  craft 
which  made  the  strength  of  men  their  instrument,  have 
attained,  that  great  end  of  woman's  ambition,  social 
preeminence.  For  Gruach  was  ambitious,  —  so  am- 
bitious that,  noble  as  she  was,  and  called  the  Lady, 
she  burned,  as  we  are  told  in  old  chronicles,  with  un- 
quenchable desire  to  bear  the  name  of  Queen. 

Most  women  are  more  ambitious  than  most  men. 
They  find  their  stimulus  to  action  in  the  desire  and 
hope  of  triumph  over  others ;  men  theirs  in  the  doing 
of  that  which,  done  completely,  insures  triumph,  which 
they  take  gladly  enough,  it  is  true,  as  the  due  and  sign 
of  their  superiority.  Men  love  power  for  its  own  sake 
and  their  pleasure  in  its  conscious  exercise ;  and,  con- 
tented with  its  real  possession,  they  are  often  willing 
that  others  should  remain  ignorant  whose  head  and 
hand  they  have  obeyed.  Women,  less  imaginative, 
and,  outside  of  love,  more  practical  and  material  than 
men,  covet  power  for  the  visible  elevation  which  it  in- 
sures to  them,  and  yet  more  for  that  which,  it  enables 
them  to  give  to  those  they  love.  For  women  who  have 
the  womanly  nature  in  its  best  form  are  more  ambi-, 


THE  LADY  GRUACIl'S  HUSBAND.         61 

tious  for  those  they  love  than  for  themselves.  They 
seek  and  will  make  great  sacrifices  for  the  advance- 
ment of  their  brothers,  lovers,  husbands,  children,  and 
sometimes  their  sisters ;  and  have  been  known  to  re- 
joice even  in  the  triumphs  of  their  dearest  female 
friends.  But  where  a  woman  is  without  tenderness 
and  without  the  capacity  of  devotion,  and  is  withal 
able,  crafty,  and  ambitious,  she  is  the  most  unscrupu- 
lous and  remorseless  creature  under  the  canopy  of 
heaven.  A  tigress  has  not  less  compunction  when  she 
bears  a  white  gasping  infant  off  into  the  jungle.  Of 
such  ambitious  sort  was  Gruach ;  but  like  the  tigress, 
whose  bright,  sleek  beauty  and  sinuous  charm  seem 
to  have  been  hers,  she  also  had  sexual  and  maternal 
instincts,  the  former  stronger  and  more  enduring  than 
the  latter.  And  so  she  loved,  after  her  kind,  and  was 
married  to  a  man  whose  person  pleased  her  eye,  whose 
spirit  and  daring  roused  her  sympathy  and  won  her 
respect,  and  whose  position  and  whose  aspirations  were 
such  that  she  hoped  by  her  union  with  him  to  reach 
the  highest  round  attainable  of  fortune's  ladder. 

This  man  was  a  cousin  of  the  King  of  Scotland, 
and,  failing  heirs  of  the  royal  body,  the  next  claimant 
of  the  throne.  He  was  a  valiant  soldier  and  a  great 
captain ;  fearless  in  combat,  and  in  the  field  a  bold 
and  skilful  leader.  He  too  was  ambitious,  and  rest- 
less under  the  constraint  of  inferior  position.  He  had 
in  a  great  degree  what  the  Lady  Gruach  was  without, 
—  imagination  and  reflection.  Yet  he  liked  the  stir 
and  bustle  of  an  active  life ;  and  although  himself  of 
a  kindly  nature,  he  fretted  at  the  benign  and  gentle 
rule  of  his  royal  cousin,  whose  nobility  and  strength 
of  character  were  tempered  by  meekness,  and  at  last, 
when  our  story  opens,  by  the  sobering  influence  of 


62  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

age.  This  man  had,  too,  a  richer  although  a  less 
stable  moral  nature  than  his  wife's ;  and,  unlike  her, 
he  was  weighted  in  the  race  of  their  ambition  with 
scruples,  the  heaviest  of  all  clogs  on  those  who  make 
success  the  end  and  goal  of  living. 

If  a  man  has  but  steadfast  purpose,  and  is  entirely 
unscrupulous,  he  may  obtain  very  great  advancement 
with  very  moderate  ability ;  and  if  opportunity  and 
great  ability  unite  in  favor  of  the  unscrupulous  and 
persistent  man,  his  road  to  distinction  is  so  nearly 
smooth  and  easy  that  the  obstacles  he  meets  with  are 
only  such  as  furnish  him  a  pleasurable  excitement  in 
surmounting  or  removing  them.  His  chances  of  suc- 
cess, however,  are  exactly  in  proportion  to  his  utter 
lack  of  scruple  when  he  is  called  upon  to  decide  be- 
tween a  bad  course,  which  may  lead  towards,  and  a 
good  one,  which  may  lead  from,  the  object  of  his  am- 
bition. Thus,  suppose  a  journalist,  for  instance,  to 
have  attained  a  desired  position  by  fawning,  craft,  and 
intrigue,  and  by  the  remorseless  use  of  every  means 
that  would  rid  him  of  men  who  would  thwart  his  plans, 
—  a  course  which  is  possible  to  men  who  are  incapable 
of  discussing  or  even  of  apprehending  a  great  principle, 
and  who  have  only  that  meanest  of  all  forms  of  intel- 
lectual ability,  political  craft  (itself  a  mere  manifesta- 
tion or  outcome  of  unscrupulousness),  —  such  a  man,  if 
the  change  of  circumstances  should  make  a  change  of 
party,  or  of  principle,  or  of  faith  seem  necessary  to 
his  success,  will  sell  himself  and  his  pledges  and  his 
memories  with  as  little  scruple  as  a  butcher  sells  mut- 
ton from  the  shambles.  We  might  say  that  he  would 
sell  his  soul  to  the  devil,  if  he  had  a  soul  worth  the 
devil's  buying.  But  beside  such  a  man  how  respect- 
able is  Faust !  And  verily  he  does  wisely,  and  he  has 


THE  LADY  GRUACH's  HUSBAND.  63 

his  reward.  For  in  one  scale  is  success,  and  in  the 
other  so  many  scruples  as  make  that  dram  of  ill  called 
failure  ;  and  the  object  of  his  life  is  the  former.  Now, 
of  this  kind  was  the  Lady  Gruach ;  but  her  husband, 
tossed  by  passion  and  borne  on  the  strong  current  of 
unrestrained  desire,  and  being  without  anchorage  to 
the  firm  bottom  of  well-settled  principle,  yet  feared  to 
cut  loose  from  all  moral  moorings,  and  showed  in  his 
career  how  difficult  and  perplexing  it  is  to  be  both 
corrupt  and  scrupulous. 

He  was  of  the  stirp  of  Beeth,  who  called  them- 
selves Mac  Beeth ;  but  in  the  chronicles,  and  in  the 
great  tragic  story  founded  on  them,  his  name  is  com- 
pressed into  Macbeth.  In  their  marriage  the  Lady 
Gruach  and  her  husband  were  as  happy  as  such  a 
couple  could  be.  They  loved  each  other  ;  their  posi- 
tion was  exalted,  and  their  means  were  ample.  But 
she,  constantly  coveting  the  crown,  and  finding  him 
not  without  ambition?  so  worked  upon  him  through 
his  fondness  for  her,  and  by  her  steadiness  of  purpose, 
that  he  came  to  look  upon  the  violent  removal  of  his 
sovereign  Duncan  as  an  act  to  which  he  might  bring 
himself ;  and  at  last  he  satisfied  his  wife  by  swearing 
that  he  would  murder  the  King  and  usurp  the  throne 
on  the  first  opportunity.  But  for  a  time  no  oppor- 
tunity was  offered.  At  last,  however,  it  came  in  a 
manner  least  expected. 

A  nobleman  named  Macdonwald,  assisted  by  the 
King  of  Norway  and  the  Thane  of  Cawdor,  headed  a 
revolt  against  King  Duncan ;  and  Macbeth,  whose 
wishes  could  not  have  been  accomplished  by  his  tak- 
ing the  second  place  in  a  rebellion,  stood  by  his  royal 
kinsman,  and  fought  for  the  throne  which  it  was  his 
interest  to  protect,  that  it  might  be,  if  not  his,  at 


64  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

least  his  nearest  cousin's,  —  Duncan.  In  two  battles 
bloodily  fought  and  gallantly  won,  Macbeth,  assisted 
by  another  valiant  and  able  captain  named  Banquo, 
crushed  the  revolt  so  completely  that  Duncan,  hear- 
ing of  his  victory,  sent  two  noblemen  immediately 
with  orders  for  the  death  of  the  Thane  of  Cawclor, 
and  the  enduing  of  Macbeth  with  the  traitor's  lost 
title  and  dignities. 

As  Macbeth,  before  the  King's  messengers  had 
reached  him,  was  marching  homeward,  he  was  met 
upon  a  heath  by  three  withered,  man-like  hags,  of  the 
sort  that  by  superstition  and  cruelty  in  the  young, 
rude  ages  of  the  world  were  made  to  believe  them- 
selves witches.  These  hailed  him  first  as  Thane  of 
Glamis,  which  he  had  recently  become  by  inheritance  ; 
next  as  Thane  of  Cawdor,  of  his  succession  to  which 
dignity  he  was  ignorant ;  and  last  as  King  to  be  there- 
after. They  also  hailed  his  companion  and  fellow- 
commander  as  the  father  of  kings.  It  is  possible 
that  these  persons  were  the  disguised  agents  of  a  fac- 
tion inimical  to  Duncan,  who,  taking  advantage  of 
the  belief  then  existing  in  witchcraft,  adopted  this 
course  to  egg  on  these  successful  generals  to  an  ex- 
pedition against  the  throne.  But  it  is  more  probable 
that  some  prophecy  of  a  person  who  fancied  herself 
gifted  with  second  sight  was  fitted  to  the  story  of 
Macbeth  after  his  career  had  become  a  part  of  the 
traditions  of  Scotland. 

The  verification  came  so  hard  on  the  heels  of  the 
seeming  prediction  as  to  the  thaneship  of  Cawdor  that 
Macbeth's  soul  was  at  once  filled  with  a  turbulent 
conflict  of  good  and  evil  suggestion  as  to  his  attain- 
ment of  the  highest  honor  promised  him  ;  and  he 
immediately  thought  of  his  sworn  purpose  of  killing 


THE  LADY   GRUACH'S  HUSBAND.  65 

his  royal  kinsman.  He  was  so  wrapped  up  in  self- 
communing  that  he  paid  no  attention  to  the  King's 
noble  messengers,  but  he  then  reached  no  decision 
except  that  he  would  take  the  crown,  come  to  him  as 
it  might ;  and  after  starting  away  from  the  thought 
of  the  murder  once  or  twice,  he  sought  the  relief  of 
present  quiet  in  the  reflection  that,  let  come  what 
will,  we  can  worry  through  it  with  time  and  oppor- 
tunity. But  although  he  determined  to  do  nothing, 
he  constantly  thought  of  the  violent  removal  of  all 
living  hindrances  to  his  attainment  of  the  throne; 
for,  at  his  first  audience  of  the  King,  Duncan  declar- 
ing his  eldest  son,  Malcolm,  heir  apparent,  with  the 
title  of  Prince  of  Cumberland,  Macbeth  immediately 
said  to  himself  that  this  new  dignity  was  a  step  which 
he  must  fall  down  or  else  o'erleap.  But  this  man 
was  one  of  those  moral  cowards  who  do  not  speak 
their  evil  purposes,  or  even  give  them  names  to  them- 
selves. He  would  have,  as  he  said,  his  eye  wink  at 
his  hand,  and  yet  would  have  that  to  be  which  the 
eye  feared  to  see  when  it  was  done.  Thus  it  was  that, 
in  writing  a  letter  to  the  Lady  Gruach,  in  which  he 
told  her  of  the  prediction  of  the  witches,  he  dropped 
no  hint  which  even  she  could  understand  that  he  saw 
the  crown  nearer  than  before.  And  in  this  letter, 
written  at  such  a  time  and  under  such  circumstances, 
he  showed  his  love  for  her,  and  his  pleasure  that  he 
was  able  at  least  to  satisfy  in  part  her  ambitious 
cravings. 

As  Gruach  was  reading  her  husband's  letter,  and 
revolving  in  her  mind  the  moral  feebleness  which 
years  had  discovered  to  her  in  him,  and  the  means 
that  she  must  use  to  goad  him  on  to  win  her  triumph, 
a  messenger  entered  and  reported  to  her  that  King 


Db  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Duncan  was  coming  to  her  castle  that  very  night. 
She  saw  so  instantly  that  here  was  the  opportunity 
for  the  King's  murder,  and  decided  so  instantly  that 
it  should  be  done,  that,  stirred  by  the  great  and  un- 
expected news,  in  the  fierce  delight  of  her  soul  she 
almost  interrupted  the  messenger  by  the  exclamation, 
"  Thou  'rt  inad  to  say  it ! "  As  she  summoned  up 
her  spirits  to  her  suddenly  imposed  task,  her  husband 
entered,  and  she,  with  no  word  of  endearment  or 
delight  to  the  man  that  came  to  her  safe  from  two 
battles,  hailed  him  by  his  and  her  two  new  titles. 
Then,  in  a  few  words  fraught  with  all  the  character 
of  the  speakers,  the  die  was  cast  for  both  of  them  and 
for  Duncan.  He  told  her  that  the  King  was  coming 
there  that  night,  and  to  her  pregnant  question,  "And 
when  goes  hence  ? "  he,  not  only  knowing  well  what 
she  meant,  but  also  remembering  what  he  had  before 
sworn  to  her  to  do,  answered,  "To-morrow  —  as  he 
purposes."  This  he  did,  wishing  at  the  time  that 
Duncan  should  not  leave  the  castle  alive,  and  showing 
this  wish  in  his  face.  For  Macbeth,  although  a  good 
dissimulator  with  his  tongue,  and  having  a  rare  gift 
at  making  excuses,  yet  with  all  his  bravery  in  battle 
could  not,  when  suddenly  startled,  control  either  his 
nerves  or  the  expression  of  his  countenance.  Sur- 
prise of  soul  or  sense  made  him  start  like  a  frightened 
horse  ;  and  his  face  always  revealed  the  emotion  that 
his  lips  belied.  And  because  of  this,  Gruach  partly 
pitied  and  partly  despised  him ;  for  she,  not  free  of 
speech,  except  in  chiding  and  in  exhortation,  was  free 
from  all  such  nervous  weakness,  and  stood  a  shock  as 
if  her  white  breast  were  marble  and  her  cold  blue  eyes 
were  sapphires. 

Without  hesitation  she  set  his  task  clearly  before 


THE   LADY  GRUACH'S  HUSBAND.  67 

him  and  undertook  its  preparation.  She  had  at  once 
to  play  the  gracious  and  honored  hostess  before  the 
King,  and  to  keep  her  husband  up  to  the  point  of 
criminality  from  which  he  was  ever  faltering.  And 
he,  in  his  reflective  fashion,  as  the  King  supped,  slunk 
away  and  fell  to  communing  with  himself  about  the 
murder  and  its  consequences  ;  and  after  the  manner 
of  men  who  have  not  the  faculty  of  cutting  them- 
selves loose  from  that  which  they  have  passed,  he 
began  to  go  over  again  in  mind  considerations  which 
he  should  have  either  yielded  to  or  set  finally  aside 
before,  and  which  his  wife  would  not  have  thought  of 
seriously  at  all.  In  this  mood  of  moral  vacillation 
she  came  upon  him,  then  determined  to  abandon  the 
murderous  project;  and,  to  use  a  phrase  that  she 
applied  to  herself,  she  so  "  chastised  him  with  valor 
of  her  tongue  "  that  he  repented  of  his  repentance, 
and  undertook  the  assassination.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, venture  to  trust  himself,  or  she  did  not  venture 
to  trust  him,  to  decide  the  moment  when  he  should 
take  the  final  step ;  and  it  was  arranged  between 
them  that  her  striking  on  her  bell  should  be  the 
signal  for  his  entrance  of  the  King's  chamber.  As 
he  was  awaiting  this  summons  in  the  court,  his  heated 
imagination  caused  his  eye  to  be  deceived  with  an 
illusion.  He  thought  he  saw  a  dagger  floating  in  the 
air,  with  its  handle  toward  his  hand,  and  that  it 
moved  before  him  toward  Duncan's  chamber,  blood 
breaking  out  upon  it  as  it  went. 

He  had  an  easy  task.  Gruach  had  made  the  two 
body-guards  who  slept  in  the  King's  chamber  drunk, 
and  had  emboldened  herself  by  wine,  so  that  when  she 
laid  their  daggers  ready  for  her  husband's  use  she  was 
tempted  to  take  the  business  off  his  hands,  but  that 


, 


68  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

the  old  King's  face  reminded  her  of  her  father's,  and 
threw  across  that  dark  and  awful  hour  the  bright,  soft 
memory  of  the  days  when  she  was  without  her  woman's 
passions.  But  she  did  not  yield  or  flinch  a  moment. 
That  little  gleam  of  sentiment  is  the  only  one  that 
falls  upon  the  figure  of  this  woman,  who  yet  was  so 
sensually  attractive  that,  in  spite  of  her  relentless  hard- 
ness, her  husband  could  hardly  speak  to  her,  even  in 
the  most  terrible  moments,  without  some  endearing 
diminutive,  —  word  caressings  to  which  she  made  no 
response. 

She  waited  for  him  at  midnight  in  the  open  court, 
and  there  he  found  her  as,  with  his  hands  all  blood, 
he  came  from  Duncan's  chamber.  She  greeted  him 
with  no  word  of  comfort,  or  sympathy,  or  even  of  ex- 
citement ;  and  when  he  looked  at  his  gory  hands  and 
spoke  of  them  with  horror,  she  only  reproached  him 
with  his  folly.  And  then  he  told  her  of  his  emotion 
while  he  was  doing  the  murder,  and  how  he  heard  a 
voice  crying  out  to  those  in  the  castle  to  sleep  no  more, 
for  Macbeth  was  murdering  sleep ;  and  he  broke  out 
into  tender  and  touching  exclamations  about  the  good 
angel  that  he  had  murdered.  All  this  was  so  strange  to 
Gruach,  so  foreign  to  her  nature,  that  not  only  could 
she  not  comprehend  it,  she  could  not  apprehend  it; 
and  she  asked  him,  with  wonder,  reproach,  and  pity 
in  her  tones,  "  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  But  his  only 
reply  was  to  tell  her  again  —  for  his  soul  was  filled 
with  frightful  imaginings  —  how  the  voice  called  on 
all  the  house  to  sleep  no  more,  and  proclaimed  that  he, 
the  murderer  of  sleep,  should  sleep  no  more  himself. 
And  yet,  even  with  the  stimulus  of  that  dread  mo- 
ment, she  could  not  apprehend  his  meaning,  and  asked 
as  she  might  have  asked  a  servant  the  day  before 


THE  LADY    GRUACH'S   HUSBAND.  69 

about  a  noise  in  the  courtyard,  "  Who  was  it  that  thus 
cried  ?  "  She  was  so  hard  of  heart,  so  literal  of  ap- 
prehension. In  all  their  conversation  throughout  all 
their  lives  it  was  always  he  who  revealed  the  sight  of 
more  in  an  act  or  an  event  than  the  act  or  the  event 
itself.  Imagination  and  fancy  made  his  utterance  rich 
with  twin-born  thoughts,  each  beautifying  and  light- 
ing up  the  other ;  his  stout  soldier's  heart  was  ever 
running  over  with  sentiment  and  tenderness,  —  to  all 
of  which  she  never  made  response.  She  saw  only  the 
material  forms,  the  literal  significance,  and  the  hard 
necessities  of  things  ;  and  to  meet  the  latter  she  bent 
all  the  energy  of  her  sinewy  soul.  And  now,  seeing 
that  he  had  in  his  confusion  brought  away  the  dag- 
gers, she  ordered  him  back  with  them.  He  refused 
to  look  again  upon  his  work,  when  she,  taking  the 
daggers  from  him,  said  she  would  go,  —  for  to  her  eye 
the  sleeping  and  the  dead  were  just  the  same,  —  and 
that  she  feared  no  painted  devil.  So  absolutely  unim- 
pressible  and  unimaginative  was  this  woman's  nature ! 
And  yet  in  the  end  it  was  she  who,  with  unclosed  but 
unseeing  eyes,  expiated  most  grievously  that  murder 
of  innocent  sleep  which  her  husband  heard  clamored 
through  the  house  ;  and  it  was  she  who  was  haunted 
by  the  blood  of  the  murdered  Duncan. 

The  guilty  husband  and  his  guiltier  wife  went  to 
their  chamber,  whence  they  were  summoned  by  the 
arrival  of  two  noblemen,  Macduff  and  Lenox,  who 
waited  upon  the  King  at  his  command.  The  murder 
having  been  discovered  by  Macduff,  Macbeth  entered 
the  King's  chamber  with  Lenox,  and  there,  in  a  seem- 
ing frenzy  of  wrath,  drew  his  sword  and  slew  the  two 
chamberlains,  dreading  that  they  should  be  questioned. 
While  he  was  absent  the  Lady  entered,  and  was  told 


70  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

that  Duncan  had  been  murdered.  With  cool  per- 
ception of  the  requirement  of  the  situation  she  ex- 
claimed, "  Woe,  alas  !  what,  in  our  house  ? "  and 
trusted  her  tongue  no  further.  But  when  Macbeth 
came  from  the  scene  of  his  crime,  he  broke  forth  into 
a  wordy  and  fanciful  exclamation  of  grief,  very  beau- 
tifully expressed,  but  too  daintily  phrased  for  a  gen- 
uine utterance  of  manly  emotion.  lie  mourned  that 
he  himself  had  not  died  before  that  hour,  and  declared 
that  from  that  time  there  was  nothing  in  the  world 
worth  living  for.  And  so  when  Macduff  asked  him 
why  he  had  killed  the  chamberlains,  he  answered  with 
a  diffuse  and  overwrought  description  of  his  own  emo- 
tions and  the  dreadful  spectacle  which  had  so  moved 
him  ;  but  his  speech  had  not  in  it  the  clear  and  simple 
ring  of  honesty.  Gruach  saw  at  once  that  he  had 
blundered  in  killing  the  men,  and  had  thus  attracted 
rather  than  diverted  suspicion  ;  and  she  saw  also  that 
he  was  overdoing  his  expression  of  grief  and  horror ; 
and  therefore  instantly  diverted  attention  from  him  by 
seeming  to  faint  and  by  calling  for  assistance.  She 
succeeded  thus  in  diverting  Macduff's  mind,  and 
gained  time  for  consultation. 

The  crime  committed,  Macbeth,  who,  when  the  way 
before  him  was  clear,  was  a  man  of  prompt  and  de- 
cided action,  immediately  claimed  the  succession, 
which,  as  the  King's  two  sons  had  fled  and  thus 
brought  some  suspicion  on  themselves,  he  could  do 
with  reason  ;  and  went  straightway  to  Scone  to  be  in- 
vested with  the  sovereignty. 

Duncan's  sons  had  vaguely  suspected  foul  play  on 
the  part  of  their  cousin  ;  but  there  was  one  man  who 
suspected  it  with  more  reason.  This  was  Ban  quo, 
who  had  heard  the  tempting  prediction  of  the  witches, 


THE   LADY   GRUACH's  HUSBAND.  71 

and  to  whom  on  that  occasion,  and  once  afterward, 
Macbeth  had  dropped  a  hint  that  it  would  be  well  for 
them  to  consult  together  at  a  future  time  for  their 
common  benefit ;  but  the  rapid  course  of  events  had 
prevented  any  communication  between  them.  Ban- 
quo,  however,  on  Macbeth's  suggestion  that  if  his  fel- 
low-general would  cleave  to  him,  it  should  be  to  his 
advantage,  had  assented,  with  the  proviso  that  he  lost 
no  honor  by  so  doing.  Macbeth  remembered  this; 
and  some  time  having  now  passed,  the  presence  of  his 
former  friend  became  oppressive  to  him.  For  Ban- 
quo's  was  a  simple  and  a  loyal  soul ;  and  from  his 
eyes  looked  forth  a  calm  integrity  of  purpose  that 
fretted  Macbeth  like  a  constant,  dumb  reproach.  He 
could  not  but  remember,  too,  that  the  same  evil  power 
which  had  promised  him  the  honors  which  he  now  pos- 
sessed, yet  did  not  quite  enjoy,  had  said  that  Banquo's 
issue  should  sit  upon  the  throne  of  Scotland,  and  thus 
profit  by  his  crime  to  the  exclusion  of  his  own  issue. 
Haunted  by  this  thought,  and  by  the  pure  and  digni- 
fied serenity  of  Banquo's  presence,  he  determined  that 
he  should  die  ;  and  now,  having  entered  upon  his  ca- 
reer of  crime,  he  needed  no  stimulus  or  support  from 
his  wife,  and  took  his  measures  promptly  and  alone. 
Nay,  proud  of  his  decision,  he  not  only  kept  it  to  him- 
self, but  when  Gruach  suggested  the  same  action,  he, 
who  before  had  leaned  on  her,  now  did  not  even  tell 
her  that  he  had  been  beforehand  in  this  matter,  but 
bade  her  to  remain  innocent  of  the  intention  until  she 
applauded  the  deed. 

Complimenting  Banquo  with  wordy  dissimulation, 
Macbeth  invited  him  to  be  present  as  chief  guest  at 
a  banquet ;  and  discovering  that  he  would  ride  forth 
with  his  son  and  return  in  the  twilight,  he  gave  orders 


72  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

that  both  should  be  assassinated.  Banquo  was  slain, 
although  Fleance  escaped ;  and  at  the  banquet  the 
chief  assassin  entered  and  informed  him  that  the 
most  important  part  of  his  bloody  commission  had 
been  executed.  This  report  was  soon  productive  of  a 
strange  scene  in  the  banquet-hall ;  for  Macbeth,  who 
had  descended  from  his  state  (for  so  the  canopied 
royal  dais  at  the  head  of  the  hall  was  called),  and  had 
taken  a  seat  at  the  table  among  his  guests,  rose  to  give 
a  general  welcome,  which  he  prefaced  with  an  expres- 
sion of  regret  for  the  absence  of  Banquo.  Then,  as 
he  turned  to  take  the  seat  again,  he  saw  it  filled  with 
a  figure,  invisible  to  all  other  —  the  figure  of  the  mur- 
dered Banquo.  His  excited  imagination  again  tricked 
his  eye  ;  and  he  was  the  victim  of  a  spectral  illusion. 
Losing  all  self-command,  he  started  back  and  broke 
out  into  exclamations  of  surprise  and  terror.  His 
wife, saw  at  once  the  nature  of  his  emotion,  and,  with 
supreme  tact,  she  readily  assured  the  company  that  the 
King  was  only  suffering  from  an  affection  to  which  he 
had  been  subject  from  his  boyhood,  and  going  to  him 
she  upbraided  him  as  if  he  had  been  a  ghost-frightened 
child.  The  illusion  was  dispelled,  and  the  festivities 
were  resumed.  Macbeth  again  rose  to  drink  a  cup  to 
the  general  joy  of  the  whole  table,  and  again,  possessed 
with  the  idea  of  Banquo's  murder,  and  as  if  in  the 
genuine  boldness  of  his  nature  to  front  it  and  to  face 
it  down,  he  openly  wished  for  his  victim's  presence. 
His  wish  was  satisfied,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned. 
The  idea  in  his  brain  was  again  pictured  on  his  eye  ; 
and  Banquo  again  rose  up  before  him.  The  guilty 
man  greeted  the  vision  with  a  shriek,  and  a  conjuration 
the  vivid  and  terrible  earnestness  of  which  was  in  strik- 
ing contrast  with  the  fanciful  utterance  of  his  assumed 


THE  LADY  GRUACH'S  HUSBAND.  73 

emotion  on  the  discovery  of  the  death  of  Duncan. 
But  his  wife  had  told  him  at  the  previous  appearance 
that  what  he  saw  was  an  illusion  like  that  of  the  dag- 
ger ;  and  with  prodigious  bravery,  and  an  effort  for 
self-possession  that  showed  a  power  of  will  greater 
than  he  had  ever  had  occasion  to  exert  on  the  field  of 
battle,  he  fronted  the  vision,  and,  addressing  it  as  if  it 
were  real,  approached  it  step  by  step  until  he  finally 
faced  it  down.  His  wife,  however,  saw  that  his  mind 
was  too  much  shattered  to  be  trusted  longer,  and  dis- 
missed the  company  with  brief  decision,  but  calm  and 
gracious  courtesy. 

They  gone,  she  did  not  console  him,  or  show  one 
spark  of  tenderness  for  the  man  whom  she  had  driven 
into  this  dreadful  strait.  She  replied  briefly  to  his 
excited  speech,  and  perceiving  the  cause  of  the  unset- 
tled condition  of  his  brain,  she  said  to  him,  "  You  lack 
the  season  of  all  natures,  sleep."  It  was  true.  She 
made  no  allusion  to  the  cry,  proclaiming  the  end  of 
sleep,  that  her  husband  heard  sound  through  the  castle 
as  he  did  his  bloody  work  in  Duncan's  bedchamber ; 
probably  she  did  not  think  of  it,  for  she  was  yet  trou- 
bled by  no  such  fancies ;  but  Macbeth  had  murdered 
sleep  —  her  sleep  as  well  as  his.  And  this  is  the  last 
that  we  see  of  her  until  she  appears  before  us  a  rest- 
less wreck,  tossed  upon  heaving  memories,  her  sleep 
become  a  monstrous  and  perverted  mockery  of  repose, 
unravelling  and  rending  instead  of  knitting  up  her 
sleeve  of  care. 

Macbeth,  profoundly  shaken  by  the  vision  at  the 
banquet,  and  sorely  disappointed  in  the  escape  of 
Fleance,  went  the  next  day  to  consult  the  three  weird 
sisters.  Their  incantations  procured  him  assurance 
that  he  was  safe  until  Birnarn  wood  came  to  Dunsi- 


74  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

nane,  and  that  he  could  be  harmed  by  no  man  of 
woman  born.  But  here  again  he  saw  the  bloody  form 
of  Banquo,  followed  by  a  long  line  of  his  descendants 
wearing  crowns  and  bearing  sceptres.  Deeply  stirred 
as  he  was  by  this  vision,  he  trusted  more  to  the  pre- 
vious assurance  as  to  his  impregnable  position,  and 
gave  himself  up  to  the  tyrannical  abuse  of  the  power 
he  had  usurped.  In  his  course  of  crime  his  nature 
had  become  perverted ;  and  he  whose  milk  of  human 
kindness  and  whose  pure  instincts,  at  war  with  his 
base  ambition,  had  provoked  the  scorn  of  the  unscru- 
pulous Gruach,  abandoned  himself  to  gross  excesses  of 
oppression,  of  debauchery,  and  of  blood.  The  land 
groaned  under  the  rule  of  him  who  before  he  became 
its  ruler  wished,  or  fancied  that  he  wished,  to  attain 
even  his  ambitious  ends  by  holy  means.  He  grew 
old,  and  his  soul  became  haggard  with  crime  even 
more  than  his  body  with  years.  His  friends  fell  from 
him,  and  he  held  his  throne  only  by  a  sway  of  terror. 
Duncan's  sons  and  Macduff,  whose  castle  he  had  sur- 
prised, and  whose  wife,  children,  and  retainers  he  had 
put  to  death,  now  by  the  aid  of  England  made  head 
against  him,  and  he  shut  himself  up  in  his  castle  of 
Dunsinaiie,  secure  there  until  the  forest  of  Birnam 
came  to  besiege  him,  and  laughing  at  all  his  woman- 
born  enemies. 

But  while  her  husband  thus  rioted,  with  hardening 
soul,  in  tyranny  and  sensual  enjoyment,  the  Lady 
Gruach  (for  so  she  was  still  called  even  more  than  by 
the  name  of  Queen  which  she  had  so  coveted)  broke 
down  under  the  protracted  consciousness  of  crime. 
She  found  out  at  last  what  he  had  meant  when  he 
imagined  that  he  had  murdered  sleep.  Her  nights 
became,  even  more  than  her  days,  an  ever-recurring 


THE  LADY  GRUACH'S  HUSBAND.  75 

agony  of  distracting  memories  and  nervous  horror. 
A  disbeliever  in  spectres,  she  herself  became  a  living 
ghost,  and  haunted  the  castle  through  the  night, 
walking  through  its  darkened  rooms  and  dismal  pas- 
sages a  crazed  somnambulist.  Of  this  her  husband 
knew  nothing  ;  for  now  their  lives  were  separate.  But 
still,  wicked  as  he  was,  and  wicked  as  he  knew  her  to 
be,  there  lingered  in  his  bad  heart  more  than  a  memory 
of  his  early  love.  For  real  love  of  man  for  woman 
and  of  woman  for  man  is  not  given  because  of  good, 
or,  God  be  thanked  therefor,  withdrawn  because  of 
evil.  Yet  even  in  this  disturbed  condition  of  a  strong 
soul  fretted  away  to  feebleness,  but  not  changed  in 
nature,  Gruach  showed  no  tenderness.  She  did  not 
repent ;  she  did  not  soften  ;  she  was  not  excited  to 
an  exaggerated,  or  even  to  a  natural  appreciation  of 
her  crime.  Her  speech  during  her  sleep-walking  was 
terrible  merely  from  its  vivid  memories.  It  was  curt, 
hard,  unyielding,  as  it  had  been  before.  She  was  op- 
pressed by  the  memory  of  the  blood  spot  on  her  hand, 
her  little  white  hand.  In  her  former  literal  fashion, 
she  wondered  that  an  old  man  should  have  so  much 
blood  in  him,  thinking  only  of  the  bare  physical  fact ; 
while  her  husband  had  thought,  as  he  looked  on  his 
hands, —  of  so  monstrous  a  crime  did  their  condition 
seem  to  him  the  sign,  —  that  they  would  redden  all  the 
waters  of  all  the  oceans.  But  the  smell  of  the  blood 
offended  the  dainty  nostrils  of  her  whose  soul,  op- 
pressed by  crime,  was  yet  impenetrable  to  the  sense  of 
sin ;  and  she  vanishes  from  our  sight  with  sighs  and 
groans  that  move  us  to  horror  and  to  pity,  but  not  to 
sympathy. 

Birnam  wood  did  come  to  Dunsinane,  borne  thither 
as  a  concealment  of  the  numbers  of  the  assailants,  who 


76  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

were  led  by  a  man  not  naturally  born  of  woman ;  and 
while  it  was  approaching,  but  before  it  had  been  seen, 
Gruach's  soul  became  too  weak  to  hold  its  place  within 
her  body,  and  she  died.  Her  husband,  to  whom  life 
now  could  bring  no  joy,  and  worse,  no  sorrow,  hearing 
the  cry  of  women  in  her  chamber,  was  little  disturbed 
by  it.  He  who  before,  with  all  his  stoutness,  had 
been  so  promptly  apprehensive  of  terror,  was  now  no 
longer  a  man  of  quick  and  fine  emotion  ;  and  she  who 
had  once  told  him  that  his  starting  would  spoil  all, 
could  she  have  been  present  now  would  have  seen  him, 
in  the  supreme  hour  of  his  peril,  hear  uiistartled  the 
death-cry  from  the  room  of  the  woman  he  had  loved 
so  well.  His  senses  had  become  dull,  his  soul  hard 
and  callous.  But  his  martial  spirit  was  unbroken,  and 
when  he  was  told  that  the  wood  was  moving,  he 
roused  himself,  and  although  he  alternated  between 
defiance  and  a  weariness  of  life  that  made  the  very 
sunlight  seem  oppressive,  he  summoned  those  who 
would  follow,  and  then  this  brave,  good-natured,  loving, 
but  selfish,  weak-souled,  and  unprincipled  man  went  out 
to  meet  the  death  that  he  had  earned  by  his  yielding 
to  his  wife's  instigation. 

"  The  woman  whom  thou  gavest  to  be  with  me  she 
gave  me  of  the  tree,  and  I  did  eat."  The  excuse 
served  the  Lady  Gruach's  husband  no  better  than  it 
did  him  who  yielded  to  the  first  temptress. 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER. 


IN  the  traditionary  history  of  Denmark  the  story  is 
told  of  a  nobleman  who  lived  at  some  time  after  the 
successful  invasions  of  England  by  the  Danes,  and 
who,  being  an  able  and  a  valiant  man,  attained  distinc- 
tion, according  to  the  standard  of  those  times,  by  feats 
of  arms  on  sea  and  land  which  nowadays  would  be 
called  piracy  and  robbery.  He  and  his  younger 
brother  were  made,  or  made  themselves,  co-governors 
of  the  province  of  Jutland  —  that  part  of  Denmark 
that  lies  nearest  Norway.  The  fame  of  this  nobleman 
—  the  elder  —  became  so  great,  and  his  prowess  and 
his  enterprise  made  him  so  feared  by  the  rulers  of 
neighboring  countries,  that  the  King  of  Norway,  being 
the  most  disturbed  and  desiring  to  bring  matters  to 
an  issue,  desperately  challenged  him  to  single  combat ; 
the  conditions  of  which  were  that  a  part  of  Norway 
corresponding  in  importance  to  the  province  of  Jutland 
should  be  set  up  as  a  stake  against  the  latter,  and  that 
both  should  be  the  prize  of  the  survivor.  The  chal- 
lenge was  accepted  ;  and  in  this  combat  the  King  of 
Norway  was  slain,  the  lands  which  he  had  staked  on 
the  issue  becoming  thereupon  a  part  of  the  realm  of 
Denmark. 

The  King  of  the  latter  country  (who  was  called  with 
proud  distinction,  The  Dane,  as  being  the  first  and 
foremost  of  his  nation),  seeing  the  martial  and  politi- 


78  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

cal  importance  of  this  nobleman,  and  seeking  to  bind 
him  firmly  to  his  interests  and  to  forestall  any  ambi- 
tious projects  which  he  might  form,  gave  him  his 
daughter  in  marriage ;  and  on  the  death  of  the  father, 
the  successful  adventurer,  in  virtue  of  his  connection 
with  Geruth  or  Gertrude,  for  so  the  princess  was  called, 
and  by  reason  of  his  being  foremost  in  martial  prowess 
and  all  kingly  qualities,  claimed  and  received  the 
throne  of  Denmark.  For  royal  dynasties  were  not  es- 
tablished among  the  Scandinavians  in  those  times,  and 
regular  family  succession  was  not  settled.  The  crown 
was  elective  ;  but  unless  there  was  some  cogent  reason 
to  the  contrary,  the  election  was  likely  to  fall  upon  the 
son  or  some  other  near  kinsman  of  a  deceased  mon- 
arch—  a  point  of  much  importance  in  the  sequel  of 
this  story.  After  his  elevation  the  new  King  seemed 
to  fulfil  all  the  hopes  which  his  previous  conduct  had 
awakened.  He  was  beloved  of  his  courtiers  and  his 
nobles  ;  and  by  no  person  did  he  seem  to  be  held  in 
higher  estimation  than  by  his  wife,  through  whom,  in 
a  great  measure,  he  attained  the  throne,  and  whose 
fondness  for  her  splendid  lord  and  master  was  exhib- 
ited so  openly  as  to  be  the  subject  of  general  remark. 
No  king  could  have  fairer  prospects  of  a  long  and 
happy  reign,  or  of  leaving  with  greater  assurance  of 
certainty  his  sceptre  and  kingdom  to  his  son  and  heir. 
For  Gertrude  had  brought  him  a  son,  who  was  called 
after  him  Amleth,  Hamblet,  or  Hamlet,  a  lad  of  high 
promise,  but  whose  life  came,  through  grief,  disap- 
pointment, turmoil,  and  disaster,  to  a  tragical  ending, 
partly  through  the  villany  of  his  father's  brother 
Claudius  and  the  wantonness  of  his  mother,  and  partly 
through  a  defect  of  his  own  nature. 

For  this  uncle,  moved  to  envy  at  the  success  of  his 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      79 

brother,  to  whom  he  was  much  inferior  in  all  points  of 
mind  and  soul  and  body  that  go  to  the  making  of  a 
noble  man,  and  moved,  too,  by  one  of  the  meanest  of 
all  passions,  ambition,  which  seeks  not  goodness  and 
greatness  with  the  desire  to  be  good  and  great,  but 
strives  for  superiority  to  others,  set  his  bad  heart  upon 
the  attainment  of  his  brother's  throne  ;  and  as  his 
first  step  toward  the  accomplishment  of  his  purpose, 
he  sought  to  win  the  affections  of  his  brother's  wife, 
she  who  was  both  by  birth  and  marriage  the  most 
royal  person,  excepting  her  own  son,  in  all  Denmark. 
Her  he  found  a  willing  prey,  and  also  a  ready  help  in 
his  design.  Notwithstanding  her  seeming  fondness 
for  the  King,  she  transferred  her  fickle  love  to  her 
brother-in-law ;  and  after  living  for  a  while  with  him 
in  adultery  unsuspected  by  the  King,  she  consented 
to,  or  at  least  winked  at,  her  husband's  murder  by  her 
paramour,  who  at  once  took  his  brother's  place  upon 
the  throne,  and  like  his  brother  confirmed  his  seat  by 
a  marriage  with  her,  which  took  place  within  a  few 
weeks  of  the  death  of  her  husband. 

At  this  time  Hamlet  was  a  student  at  college,  or 
at  school,  the  name  then  given  to  the  highest  institu- 
tions of  learning  and  philosophy.  His  exact  age  is 
not  known  ;  but  it  could  not  have  been  more  than 
twenty  years.  For  we  are  told  that  the  new  King  was 
looking  forward  with  apprehension  to  the  time  when 
his  nephew  should  come  to  man's  estate  ;  he  is  spoken 
of  as  the  young  Adonis  of  the  North,  and  his  affection 
is  called  a  violet  in  the  youth  of  primy  nature ;  and 
all  the  many  references  to  his  age  at  this  time  show 
that  he  was  on  the  threshold  of  early  manhood. 
Chief  among  his  friends  and  companions  at  the  uni- 
versity was  a  young  gentleman  of  no  estate,  but  of 


80  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

a  noble  soul  and  of  a  simple,  strong,  and  steadfast 
nature,  named  Horatio ;  who  seems  to  have  been 
somewhat  older  as  well  as  more  staid  than  himself. 
Two  others,  very  much  his  inferiors,  named  Rosen- 
crantz  and  Guildenstem,  were  also  his  companions. 
Even  at  college  the  young  Hamlet,  with  an  innate  dis- 
position to  criticise  all  things,  seems  to  have  studied 
the  characters  of  those  around  him ;  and  he  had  pre- 
ferred Horatio,  not  with  the  spontaneous  liking  com- 
mon to  youth,  but  because  he  had  discovered  in  him 
certain  admirable  qualities  —  fortitude,  good  faith, 
firmness  of  will,  and  a  calm  serenity  of  disposition. 
Hamlet  was  intellectually  fascinated  by  a  character 
which  he  appreciated  none  the  less,  but  rather  the 
more,  because  it  was  the  opposite  to  his  own ;  while 
Horatio  was  pleased  with  the  affability,  the  princely 
courtesy,  the  high  discourse,  far-reaching  thought,  and 
subtle  insight  of  Hamlet. 

The  death  of  Hamlet's  father  brought  the  youthful 
prince  from  the  university  to  Elsinore,  the  capital  of 
Denmark ;  whither  he  went  filled  with  two  conflicting 
thoughts,  grief  for  his  father  and  expectation  of  suc- 
ceeding him  on  the  throne.  For  one  of  Hamlet's  pas- 
sions was  that  form  of  ambition  which  consists  in  a 
love  of  dignified  position  and  power,  without  the  en- 
terprise and  the  hardiness  of  nature  which  enable  a 
man  to  win  these  for  himself.  He  loved  to  be  gracious 
and  courteous  to  those  around  him ;  and  he  desired  to 
stand  upon  the  elevation  coming  from  which  his  grace 
and  courtesy  might  be  highly  prized.  But  he  had  not 
the  steady  self-assertion  and  the  daring  which  were 
necessary  to  the  thrusting  of  another  down  who  stood 
in  his  place,  however  wrongfully.  This  partly  because 
of  his  youth  and  his  studious  habits,  but  partly  also 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      81 

because  of  his  mental  constitution.  He  arrived  at 
court  barely  in  time  for  his  father's  funeral,  and  found 
his  uncle  already  in  possession  of  the  throne  with  the 
consent  and  hearty  support  of  all  his  father's  nobles 
and  courtiers,  and  even  of  his  father's  widow.  His 
mother,  whom  he  expected  to  see  plunged  in  an  over- 
whelming sorrow,  surprised  and  disgusted  him  by  an 
unconcealed  fondness  for  his  uncle,  and  offended  him 
no  less  by  the  willing  consent  which  she  gave  to  the 
extinction  of  his  own  present  hopes  of  the  succession. 
The  swift  marriage  of  his  mother  to  his  uncle  rounded 
and  perfected  this  outrage  by  its  complete  disregard 
of  his  father's  memory,  and  by  the  stability  it  gave  to 
his  uncle's  position  on  a  throne  which  Hamlet  had 
looked  upon  as  his  own  almost  certain  inheritance. 
For  in  him,  through  his  mother  as  well  as  his  father, 
centred  all  the  royalty  in  Denmark. 

Thus  sorely  smitten  in  his  two  tenderest  points,  he 
went  about  the  court  moodily,  making  a  show  of  his 
anger  and  his  grief  ;  saying  little,  doing  nothing,  fret- 
ting and  sneering,  but  not  forming  any  designs  for 
the  vindication  of  his  father's  memory  or  the  attain- 
ment of  his  own  ambition.  For  his  was  one  of  those 
natures  into  which  wrong  enters  like  a  thorn  to  wound 
and  rankle,  not  as  a  spur  to  rouse  endeavor.  In  this 
he  was  very  unlike  young  Fortinbras,  the  son  of  the 
King  of  Norway  slain  by  Hamlet's  father ;  who,  al- 
though a  delicate  and  gentle  prince  for  those  rough 
days,  being  yet  full  of  spirit  and  promptitude  of  soul, 
seized  this  moment  when  the  court  of  Denmark  was 
in  a  disturbed  condition,  over  which  Hamlet  was 
musing  and  fretting,  to  set  on  foot  a  warlike  enter- 
prise for  the  recovery  of  the  territory  which  had  been 
lost  to  Norway  by  his  father's  violent  death.  The 


82  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

threatened  war  and  the  moody  discontent  of  Hamlet 
cast  a  gloom  upon  the  court,  and  darkened  the  royal 
honeymoon  with  serious  alarm. 

Hamlet  was  soon  followed  to  Elsinore  by  his  friend 
Horatio,  who  arrived  there,  if  not  in  time  for  the  late ' 
King's  funeral,  at  least  for  the  new  King's  marriage 
of  the  ro}ral  widow  Gertrude.  Soon  after  his  arrival, 
and  before  he  had  found  an  opportunity  of  seeing  his 
friend  the  Prince,  who,  absorbed  in  his  melancholy 
reveries,  seems  not  to  have  known  or  at  least  to  have 
noticed  the  presence  of  his  school-fellow,  Horatio  was 
told  by  two  soldiers  of  his  acquaintance,  gentlemen, 
but  of  no  rank,  of  a  strange  appearance  which  they 
had  twice  seen  as  they  kept  watch  on  a  platform  of 
the  castle.  A  ghostly  figure  had  passed  and  repassed 
them  near  the  hour  of  midnight.  Clothed  in  com- 
plete steel,  it  moved  silently  before  them  ;  and  from 
the  lifted  beaver  looked  out  the  sad  face  of  the  dead 
King  of  Denmark.  At  the  request  of  one  of  them 
the  doubting  Horatio  joined  them  on  their  watch,  that 
he  might  see  the  apparition.  It  came ;  passed  solemnly 
before  the  watchers,  but  neither  spoke  nor  made  a  sign 
when  it  was  spoken  to,  and  disappeared  at  the  sound 
of  the  midnight  cock-crowing.  Deeming  such  a  visita- 
tion portentous,  Horatio  determined  to  inform  young 
Hamlet  of  it ;  for  he  was  sure  that  the  ghost,  although 
dumb  to  others,  would  speak  to  him.  The  next  day 
he  found  the  Prince  alone  in  the  hall  of  state.  The 
new  King  had  held  a  formal  audience  that  day,  had 
despatched  ambassadors  to  Norway  to  check  the  pro- 
ject of  young  Fortinbras,  and  had  endeavored,  with 
the  Queen's  aid,  to  rouse  Hamlet  from  the  moodiness 
which  so  troubled  the  guilty  mind  of  the  murderer 
and  usurper.  To  win  the  Prince  to  acquiescence  in 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      83 

the  new  state  of  affairs,  lie  had  assured  him  of  his 
succession,  and  had  begged  him  to  remain  at  the  court 
as  the  first  of  subjects,  the  King's  chief  counsellor 
and  heir.  He  need  not  have  feared  any  untoward  con- 
sequences from  Hamlet's  lonely  cogitations.  For  the 
Prince  had  already,  in  spite  of  his  grief  and  his  anger, 
and  the  disturbed  state  of  affairs  which  gave  him  op- 
portunities of  avenging  his  father's  death  and  acquir- 
ing the  crown  he  so  much  desired,  and  which  at  least 
made  it  becoming  that  he,  the  first  subject  in  the 
kingdom,  should  be  present  at  the  capital,  determined, 
in  weak  despair  and  dejection  of  soul,  to  return  to  the 
university.  Suspecting  him  and  fearing  to  trust  him 
out  of  sight,  the  King,  with  the  Queen's  help,  dis- 
suaded him  from  this  puerile  purpose. 

The  audience  being  ended,  the  court  withdrew  ;  and 
Hamlet,  left  alone,  fell,  as  his  wont  was,  into  reverie ; 
and  his  thoughts  were  not  of  the  means  by  which  he 
could  obtain  what  he  thought  his  right,  —  the  throne, 
—  but  of  his  mother's  sin  against  sentiment,  and  of 
his  own  disgust,  and  of  his  weariness  of  life.  He 
was  ignorant  thus  far  of  the  adultery  and  the  murder ; 
yet  he  fed  the  bitterness  of  his  soul  by  thinking  that 
he  longed  to  commit  suicide.  To  this  mood  he  was 
brought  not  only  by  his  mother's  conduct  and  his 
own  disappointment,  but  by  his  constant  neglect  of 
the  active  duties  of  his  position,  and  his  habit  of 
watching  and  pondering  the  conduct  of  all  around 
him.  Hence  came  his  soul's  tedium  and  his  fanciful 
dallying  with  the  thought  of  a  self-sought  death.  His 
weariness  of  life  came  of  too  much  observation  and 
reflection  ;  for  it  is  sadly  true  that  they  enjoy  life  most 
who  know  and  think  the  least  about  it. 

In  this  mood  Horatio  found  the  Prince,  and  greeting 


84  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

frankly  and  heartily,  although  respectfully,  the  close 
friend  who  had  parted  from  him  hardly  a  month 
before,  he  was  surprised  to  be  received,  although  with 
perfect  courtesy,  yet  not  with  instant  and  complete 
recognition.  This  was  the  result  of  no  hauteur  or 
affectation  on  the  part  of  Hamlet,  but  of  an  inability, 
common  to  natures  like  his,  to  break  off  their  musings, 
and,  except  upon  great  occasions,  bring  their  faculties 
suddenly  to  bear  upon  what  is  newly  placed  before 
them.  Hamlet  welcomed  Horatio,  and  then  fell  into 
his  accustomed  jeering.  For,  as  to  his  mental  tone 
and  habit  in  his  daily  conversation,  he  was  chiefly  a 
cynic  and  a  humorist.  His  irony  was  fine  and  cutting, 
but  his  humor  was  often  broad.  Himself  an  accom- 
plished and  elegant  gentleman  for  his  time,  a  thought- 
ful man,  and  of  good  impulses,  he  walked  through  life 
looking  about  him  with  a  fine  scorn  of  all  that  was 
inferior  to  himself ;  and  to  this  he  gave  utterance  in 
polished  jeers  and  bitter  ridicule.  It  was  only  when 
he  was  alone,  or  with  some  trusted  friend  like  Horatio, 
or  favorite  humble  follower  like  a  certain  player  whom 
he  admired,  that  he  gave  serious  utterance  to  his  sad 
philosophy.  And  this  was  rarely ;  for  he  loved  and 
admired  few  men  well  enough  to  talk  with  them  ear- 
nestly and  admit  them  to  real  acquaintance  with  his 
soul. 

Hamlet  was  much  disturbed  by  Horatio's  story,  and 
determined  himself  to  watch  that  night  for  the  ap- 
parition. It  came  ;  he  recognized  it  instantly  as  his 
father's  ghost,  and  following  it  alone  to  a  retired 
place,  there  learned  from  it  that  his  father  had  been 
murdered  by  his  uncle,  and  that  his  mother  had  for- 
saken her  husband,  even  during  his  life,  for  her 
brother-in-law.  Shocked  by  this  revelation,  and  roused 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      85 

by  the  exhortations  of  his  father's  spirit,  Hamlet,  on 
the  impulse  of  the  moment,  which  with  him  was  al- 
ways equally  strong  and  evanescent,  devoted  himself 
solemnly  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  ghost's  command. 
He  declared  in  his  heart  that  he  would  give  up  his 
contemplative,  inactive  life,  and  wipe  out  of  his  memory 
all  saws,  that  is,  all  the  sententious  maxims  that  he  had 
formed  and  cherished  there.  Whereupon  the  forma- 
tion of  this  resolution  reminding  him  of  his  cherished 
habit,  and  causing  him  to  think  how  valuable  and 
pleasant  these  saws  were,  he  at  the  next  moment  took 
out  his  note-book  and  wrote  down  the  maxim,  that  a 
man  might  smile  and  be  a  villain.  Then  when  his 
companions  joined  him  he  immediately  began  to  jest ; 
and  although  he  was  then  sure  that  what  the  ghost 
said  was  true,  as  sure  as  he  ever  became  afterward, 
and  that  according  to  the  moral  notions  of  that  time, 
as  well  as  in  compliance  with  the  ghost's  injunction, 
he  should  slay  his  uncle  at  his  first  opportunity,  he, 
now  seeing  that  the  usurper  had  reason  to  hate  and 
fear  him,  and  being  willing  to  shelter  himself  from 
the  monarch's  malice,  and  hoping  also  to  divert  atten- 
tion from  himself  while  he  thought  about  thinking 
what  design  he  ought  to  form  for  the  avenging  of  his 
father,  resolved  to  feign  madness.  Then  he  made 
Horatio  and  the  others  swear  to  keep  the  vision  and 
this  resolution  secret.  And  instead  of  rejoicing,  he 
cursed  himself  that  he  was  born  to  such  a  duty. 

Now,  there  was  in  the  court  of  Denmark,  in  a  posi- 
tion like  that  of  chamberlain,  an  old  nobleman  named 
Polonius  ;  a  politician,  crafty,  prudent,  full  of  worldly 
wisdom,  and  withal  a  very  accomplished  gentleman, 
but  pompous  in  manner,  in  thought  somewhat  over- 
subtle,  and  in  speech  too  wordy.  He  had  a  son, 


86  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Laertes,  a  young  man  of  good  heart  and  high  spirit, 
and  a  daughter,  Ophelia,  a  fond,  amorous,  sweet,  and 
gentle  girl,  but  weak-souled,  easily  led,  and  easily  re- 
buffed. Thrown  into  Hamlet's  company,  his  comeli- 
ness and  courtesy  won  her  to  love  him  after  her  feeble 
fashion;  and  he,  first  allowing  himself  to  be  loved, 
came  at  last  to  love  her  in  return,  and  even  to  talk  to 
her  of  marriage.  Polonius  sent  Laertes  to  Paris,  and, 
fearing  that  Hamlet  did  not  wish  to  make  Ophelia  his 
wife,  commanded  her  to  break  off  her  intercourse  with 
him;  which  she  did  without  much  pain  or  remon- 
strance. This  gave  Hamlet  a  good  opportunity  to 
begin  impressively  the  play  of  his  feigned  madness ; 
and  some  time  after  the  appearance  of  the  ghost,  we 
know  not  how  long,  but  long  enough  for  Laertes  to 
have  become  in  need  of  money  at  Paris,  and  to  have 
formed  new  friends  and  new  habits,  the  Prince  startled 
poor  Ophelia  by  coming  before  her  in  a  slovenly  dress 
—  he  who  was  usually  a  dainty  man  in  his  apparel  — 
and  by  wild  and  melancholy  actions ;  after  which  he 
left  her,  sighing  deeply,  but  not  speaking.  She  told 
this  to  her  father,  who,  immediately  inferring  that  the 
Prince  was  mad  for  his  daughter's  love,  spread  the 
report  about  the  palace. 

The  King,  however,  ever  apprehensive  through  con- 
scious guilt,  came  to  fear  that  Hamlet's  apparent  mad- 
ness had  another  cause  ;  and  after  it  had  continued 
some  time  longer,  he  sent  to  the  university  for  the 
Prince's  friends  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  to  per- 
form the  double  office  of  diverting  him  and  being  spies 
upon  his  conduct.  They  came ;  and  time  enough  had 
elapsed  ere  their  arrival  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
purpose  of  the  embassy  to  Norway ;  the  ambassadors 
and  the  young  noblemen  reaching  Elsinore  at  the 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      87 

same  time.  On  the  day  that  both  had  audience,  Polo- 
nius,  that  he  might  show  the  King  that  Hamlet  was 
mad  because  Ophelia  had  repelled  his  love,  proposed 
that  a  meeting  should  be  contrived  between  the  two, 
at  which  himself  and  Claudius  should  be  hidden  ob- 
servers. The  King  consented,  not  believing  that 
Hamlet  was  love-crazed,  but  hoping  to  get  at  the  truth 
by  the  help  of  this  new  spy.  Polonius,  left  alone  and 
seeing  Hamlet  coming,  sought  an  encounter  of  wits 
with  him,  in  which  he  was  badly  worsted.  For  the 
Prince  indulged  his  cynical  humor  to  the  utmost,  and, 
under  cover  of  his  feigned  madness,  mocked  and  jeered 
the  old  chamberlain  to  his  face,  with  a  rudeness  and 
cruelty  which,  had  not  his  pretended  condition  appa- 
rently voided  his  conduct  of  malicious  purpose,  would 
have  been  brutal.  When  the  old  man  retired,  Rosen- 
crantz  and  Guildenstern  came  in,  and  Hamlet  fell  to 
jesting  with  them,  and  finally  into  the  utterance  of  his 
scornful,  misanthropic  musings.  And  he  told  them, 
as  he  told  many  others  on  various  occasions,  that  he 
had  sunk  into  melancholy*  Indeed,  he  accused  him- 
self of  insanity  to  divers  persons  until  almost  the  day 
of  his  death ;  a  sure  evidence,  if  they  had  but  known 
it,  that  he  was  not  mad ;  and  indeed  so  weak  was  his 
resolve  that  he  confessed  with  particularity  to  Guilden- 
stern and  Rosencrantz,  as  well  as  to  Horatio  and  to 
his  mother,  that  he  was  feigning  madness  for  a  pur- 
pose. He  was  too  unstable  and  incontinent  of  soul 
even  to  keep  his  own  great  secret,  but  went  about  mak- 
ing others  swear  that  they  would  keep  it  for  him. 

While  he  arid  his  college  friends  were  talking,  a 
company  of  players  arrived  at  the  palace ;  and  the 
Hamlet  who  had  just  avowed  that  the  earth  and  the 
heavens  held  neither  beauty  nor  joy  for  him  had  the 


88  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

new-coine  ministers  of  pleasure  immediately  before 
him,  and  began  to  speak,  and  to  criticise  and  quote, 
finally  causing  the  principal  player  to  recite  part  of  a 
scene.  He  treated  his  old  favorites  in  the  princely 
way  that  sat  on  him  so  well,  and  showed  the  kindly 
good  nature  which  was  one  trait  of  his  character  by 
forbidding  the  chief  actor  to  mock  Polonius.  He 
would  sneer  at  the  old  counsellor  himself,  under  cover 
of  his  feigned  madness ;  for  that  took  away  the  appear- 
ance of  design,  which  is  the  life  of  insult ;  but  he  would 
subject  him  to  no  coarser  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
his  inferiors.  With  a  project  half  formed,  he  asked 
the  player  if  he  could,  and  would,  study  a  speech  which 
he  should  write,  and,  of  course,  did  not  ask  in  vain. 

When  the  player  left  his  presence,  Hamlet  fell  again 
to  thinking  about  what  he  should  have  done  and  had 
left  undone ;  and  because  his  intellect  was  ever  brighter 
and  higher  than  his  moral  nature,  he  saw  himself  in 
his  own  mind's  eye  a  weakling  that  he  despised.  The 
player,  in  reciting  his  speech,  had  assumed  the  passion 
of  the  part  with  such  fervor  and  seeming  reality  that 
his  words  pierced  Hamlet's  heart  like  an  unseen  dag- 
ger, and  he  reproached  himself  bitterly  that  he  had 
done  nothing  to  avenge  his  father  and  right  himself. 
And  so,  feeling  that  he  deserved  that  self-reproach, 
because  he  was  sure  that  his  uncle  had  killed  his 
father,  whose  death  was  yet  unavenged,  he  immedi- 
ately and  with  much  earnestness  called  upon  his  brain 
to  furnish  him  with  some  device  by  which  he  could  be 
made  sure  that  his  father  had  been  killed  by  his  uncle ; 
and  thereupon  he  fell  back  upon  his  half -formed  reso- 
lution to  have  the  play  of  a  murder  represented  before 
the  court  at  Elsinore,  subtly  suggesting  to  himself  that 
perhaps  the  ghost  was  a  devil,  and  that  he  ought  to 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      89 

have  better  grounds  for  revenge  than  such  an  appari- 
tion. 

Meantime  he  continued  to  muse  upon  the  emptiness 
of  life,  its  rooted  wrongs  and  endless  evils ;  and  he 
thought,  not  how  to  do  what  he  had  sworn  to  his 
father's  spirit,  but  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to 
turn  his  dagger  against  himself,  and  thus  escape  the 
duty  set  before  him ;  and  then,  ever  f orethinking  al- 
though never  forecasting,  he  saw  that  death,  although 
it  would  relieve  him  of  his  present  perplexity,  would 
leave  him  he  knew  not  where ;  and  he  decided  not  to 
die  until  he  had  thought  somewhat  longer  over  the 
possible  advantages  of  dying. 

One  day  while  he  was  musing  in  this  fashion,  the 
King  and  Polonius  watching  in  concealment,  Ophelia 
appeared.  She  had  not  seen  him  for  many  a  day,  and 
had  long  desired  to  find  an  opportunity  of  returning 
him  his  letters  and  his  gifts,  according  to  her  father's 
orders.  Hamlet  at  first  spoke  her  fair,  and  in  forget- 
f  ulness  that  he  was  mad ;  but  soon  remembering  his 
cue  (it  being  suggested  by  her  presence  and  her  men- 
tion of  his  love  tokens),  and  seeking  a  vent  for  his 
cynical  humor  and  his  bitterness  of  soul,  he  mocked 
and  flouted  this  poor  girl,  denying  his  love  for  her, 
and  satirizing  her  sex  in  her  person ;  telling  her  that 
he  was  mad,  and  that  the  folly  and  wantonness  of 
women  had  made  him  so,  bidding  her  go  to  a  nunnery 
lest  she  should  become  the  mother  of  such  a  poor  thing 
as  a  man,  and  declaring  that  there  should  be  no  more 
marriages  in  Denmark.  His  conduct  on  this  occasion 
was  so  hard  and  cruel,  and  so  far  from  any  semblance 
of  madness,  that  some  of  those  who  have  studied  his 
case  have  concluded  that  he  must  have  discovered  that 
the  King  and  Polonius  were  overhearing  liim.  But 


90  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

there  is  no  warrant  for  such  an  opinion,  which  indeed 
is  suggested  only  as  a  support  to  the  indefensible  as- 
sumption that  Hamlet  being  good  at  heart,  his  conduct 
must  have  been  always  thoroughly  estimable  and  con- 
sistent ;  whereas  there  are  no  graver  offences  or 
grosser  errors  than  those  into  which  kind-hearted  men 
fall  from  lack  of  resolution.  This,  poor  Hamlet  saw 
himself ;  for,  as  he  was  talking  with  his  friend  Hora- 
tio, whom  he  loved  and  trusted  more  than  any  other 
person  in  the  world,  he  told  him  that  he  had  chosen 
him  because  of  his  resolute  firmness  and  serenity  of 
soul ;  and  he  declared  that  of  all  men  those  were 
blessed  who  were  so  constituted  that  they  could  not  be 
made  the  sport  of  fortune,  and  that  the  man  whom  he 
took  to  his  inmost  heart  must  be  one  who,  like  Hora- 
tio, was  not  the  prey  of  his  own  emotions. 

The  play  was  performed,  and  accomplished  all  that 
Hamlet  expected  of  it ;  that  is,  it  assured  him  of  what 
he  knew  perfectly  well  before  —  that  his  uncle  had 
killed  his  father.  The  King  fled  from  the  representa- 
tion of  the  murder ;  the  performance  stopped ;  and 
the  court  rose  and  went  out  in  confusion.  Hamlet 
burst  forth  into  exclamations,  and  began  to  talk  with 
Horatio  about  the  event,  when  he  suddenly  broke  off 
with  a  light  jest  and  called  for  music.  Then  Rosen- 
crantz  and  Guildenstern  came  to  him  with  a  message 
from  his  mother  bidding  him  come  to  her  chamber. 
He  received  them  with  ironical  compliment,  and  at 
once  began  to  jest  and  to  jeer,  telling  them  in  earnest, 
however  (that  is,  with  purpose),  that  they  should  be- 
lieve of  him  two  things :  first,  that  he  was  mad  (a  sure 
sign  that  he  was  sane),  and  next,  that  his  grief  was 
that  he  had  been  disappointed  of  the  throne.  True, 
he  had  the  King's  word  for  the  succession;  but  he 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      91 

said,  "  While  the  grass  grows  the  steed  starves."  The 
musicians  whom  he  had  called  for,  entering  then  with 
their  pipes,  found  that  he  had  already  changed  his 
purpose ;  he  wanted  no  music  ;  but  the  sight  of  the 
instruments  suggested  to  him  a  mode  of  showing  his 
former  friends  that  he  saw  through  their  design.  He 
asked  them  to  play  upon  the  recorder,  and  they  being 
obliged  to  refuse  because  they  had  not  the  skill,  he 
burst  out  upon  them  in  anger,  telling  them  that  he  saw 
they  were  trying  to  play  upon  him,  and  that  they 
would  find  him  harder  to  play  upon  than  a  pipe. 
Polonius  then  coming  in,  Hamlet  tried  how  far  his 
complaisance  would  lead  him  to  acquiesce  in  any  folly 
the  Prince  might  utter ;  and  finding  that  it  knew  no 
bounds,  he  inferred  that  the  general  belief  in  his  mad- 
ness was  well  established. 

Left  alone  by  Polonius,  he  immediately  began  to 
assure  himself  how  very  terribly  he  felt ;  communing 
with  himself,  as  he  always  did,  in  a  very  high  style 
and  with  a  vivid  imagination.  He  thought  at  this 
time  that  he  could  drink  hot  blood  and  do  some  act 
so  terrible  as  to  affright  the  face  of  nature ;  but  he 
did  nothing  but  muse  and  talk  after  his  old  fashion. 
For  on  his  way  to  his  mother's  chamber  he  passed  the 
King's  oratory,  and  there  saw  him  alone,  exposed  and 
praying.  The  thought  at  once  occurred  to  him  that 
here  was  his  opportunity.  But  hardly  had  he  half 
drawn  his  sword  when  he  thought  of  a  good  reason 
for  putting  off  the  execution  of  his  purpose.  It  was 
that  if  he  killed  the  King  at  prayer  he  would  send 
him  to  heaven,  and  so  not  punish  but  reward  him ; 
and  that  to  rightly  avenge  his  father  he  should  kill 
his  murderer  at  some  time  when  dying  he  would  go 
straight  to  hell !  —  a  revelation  of  a  fiendish  malignity 


92  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

of  purpose,  if  it  revealed  any  purpose  whatever.  But 
it  revealed  none.  On  the  contrary,  it  merely  showed 
Hamlet's  lack  of  purpose.  He  pretended  to  deceive 
himself  with  this  argument,  when  all  that  he  really 
wished  was  to  shuffle  away  from,  and  procrastinate, 
what  he  felt  to  be  his  solemn  duty. 

When  Hamlet  reached  his  mother's  chamber, 
Polonius  had  hidden  himself  behind  the  hangings 
to  give  the  Queen  the  moral  support  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  presence.  But  the  Prince  being  very 
violent  in  his  manner,  as  was  now  his  way  with 
women  (for  the  effect  of  his  rankling  wrong  showed 
itself  in  this  perversion  of  his  nature),  she  cried  out 
for  help,  and  Polonius  answering,  Hamlet  on  the  in- 
stant whipped  out  his  sword,  and,  with  his  customary 
jeer  upon  his  lips,  killed  the  old  courtier  on  the  spot ; 
thinking  at  the  time  it  was  the  King,  and  rejoicing 
that  he  had  slain  him  on  a  momentary  impulse,  and 
had  thus  relieved  himself  of  the  intolerable  irksome- 
ness  of  keeping  himself  up  to  the  sustained  purpose 
of  executing  a  fixed  resolution. 

The  son  rated  the  mother  roundly  for  her  sin,  and 
still  more  roundly  for  her  bad  taste  in  leaving  so 
handsome  and  gallant  a  man  as  his  father  for  such  an 
ugly,  vulgar  fellow  as  his  uncle.  While  he  was  thus 
thinking  of  his  father,  and  excited  by  the  recital  of 
his  mother's  conduct,  he  became  the  victim  of  an 
optical  delusion  —  such  a  one  as  troubled  Macbeth, 
a  Scottish  usurper  who  saw  again  and  again  the 
figure  of  a  man  named  Banquo,  whom  he  had  caused 
to  be  slain.  While  Hamlet  was  speaking  to  his 
mother  about  the  father  whose  ghost  he  and  Horatio 
and  Bernardo  and  Marcellus  had  seen  upon  the  plat- 
form, he  thought  he  saw  the  ghost  enter  the  chamber, 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      93 

and  thought  he  heard  him  speak  and  chide  him  that 
he  had  let  so  long  a  time  pass  by  while  he  was  vex- 
ing his  soul  with  thoughts  of  his  wrong  and  his 
suffering,  and  dulling  the  edge  of  his  purpose.  But 
it  was  not  the  ghost.  For  the  ghost  was  visible  to 
every  eye,  and  this  that  Hamlet  saw  was  invisible  to 
his  mother.  The  ghost  wore  armor ;  but  Hamlet  saw 
his  father  "  in  his  night  gown."  That  was  not  what 
we  call  now  a  night  shirt  ;  for  until  a  very  late  period 
people  wore  no  night  dress,  but  lay  in  bed  quite 
naked.  A  night  gown  was  until  comparatively  late 
years  what  we  call  now  a  dressing  gown,  or  robe 
de  chambre ;  and  Hamlet,  in  his  mother's  chamber, 
merely  fancied  that  he  saw  his  father  dressed  as  he 
had  often  seen  him  there  in  his  lifetime.  When  he 
was  about  to  part  from  his  mother,  he  entreated  her 
to  refrain  herself  from  his  uncle's  bed  that  night ; 
but  he  seemed  to  desire  this  in  a  great  measure  lest 
the  King  should  wheedle  her  into  a  confession  of  the 
fact  that  her  son  was  only  craftily  feigning  madness. 
And  in  the  consideration  of  Hamlet's  case  nothing 
should  be  kept  more  clearly  in  mind  than  that  from 
the  time  we  hear  of  him  until  his  death  he  was 
perfectly  sane,  and  a  man  of  very  clear  and  quick 
intellectual  perceptions  and  strong  sound  judgment, 
—  one  perfectly  responsible  for  his  every  act  and 
every  word ;  that  is,  as  responsible  as  a  man  can  be 
who  is  constitutionally  irresolute,  purposeless,  and 
procrastinating.  They  have  done  him  wrong  who 
have  called  him  undecided.  His  penetration  was  like 
light ;  his  decision  like  the  Fates' ;  he  merely  left 
undone. 

The  Queen  kept  Hamlet's  counsel  better  than  he 
kept  it  himself,  and  reported  to  the  King  that  he  was 


94  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

as  mad  as  the  raging  elements.  But  the  King  seeing, 
like  Polonius,  a  method  in  his  madness,  and  determin- 
ing that  in  any  case  it  would  be  better  that  he  should 
be  put  out  of  the  way,  sent  him  to  England  with 
Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  with  sealed  letters, 
pretended  as  a  demand  for  tribute,  but  really  asking 
that  the  Prince  should  be  put  to  death  immediately. 

As  Hamlet  went  to  the  port  whence  he  was  to  em- 
bark, he  met  a  troop  of  soldiers  marching.  They 
were  Norwegian  forces,  led  by  young  Fortinbras,  the 
son  of  the  man  whom  Hamlet's  father  slew.  Pie  was, 
like  Hamlet,  the  heir  to  his  father's  and  his  uncle's 
throne,  and  the  counterproof  of  Hamlet  in  this  story. 
They  were  going  to  fight  for  a  little  patch  of  ground 
not  worth  the  cost  of  the  expedition ;  and  yet  the 
Polacks  in  possession  were  prepared  for  a  desperate 
resistance.  When  they  had  passed  by,  Hamlet  sent 
his  companions  forward,  and  began,  after  his  fashion, 
to  muse  upon  his  own  motives ;  and  he  discovered 
and  confessed  to  himself  that  his  habit  of  thinking 
and  thinking,  instead  of  thinking  and  doing,  had 
made  him  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  coward.  And 
he  mercilessly  scourged  himself,  in  thought,  that  he 
had  not  slain  his  uncle  and  seized  the  Danish  throne  ; 
for  which  he  had  .cause,  and  will  and  strength  and 
means.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that  Hamlet 
never  doubted  for  a  moment  that  it  was  his  duty  to 
avenge  his  father's  death  by  his  uncle's.  Upbraiding 
himself  thus,  he  declared  that  from  the  time  of  re- 
ceiving this  lesson  his  thought  should  be  only  to  do 
justice  on  his  father's  murderer.  Poor  moral  weak- 
ling! his  thought  and  his  intent  were  just  as  they 
ever  had  been,  the  straws  of  every  gust  of  accident. 
Being  suspicious  of  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern  as 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      95 

the  instruments  of  his  uncle  on  the  voyage  to  England, 
he  purloined  their  letters,  opened  and  read  them,  and 
promptly  wrote  one  ordering  them  to  be  put  to  death, 
sealed  it  with  his  father's  seal  which  he  carried  with 
him,  and  putting  this  in  place  of  the  other,  sent  them 
to  the  fate  to  which  they  knew  they  were  taking  him. 
By  this  little  trick  he  saved  his  life,  and  rid  himself 
of  two  double-faced  companions  whose  fate  cannot  be 
mourned.  His  action  here  was  prompt,  but  it  hardly 
deserved  the  name  of  action.  It  was  the  instant  fruit 
of  one  of  those  impulses  upon  which  irresolute  men 
sometimes  act,  without  thought  and  without  purpose, 
and  which  are  little  more  significant  of  high  mental 
or  strong  moral  constitution  than  the  snap  of  an  alli- 
gator's jaws  or  the  spring  of  a  serpent. 

An  encounter  with  pirates  ended  in  such  a  way  that 
Hamlet  returned  to  Denmark  while  his  companions 
went  on  to  their  graves  in  England.  During  his  ab- 
sence Ophelia  had  become  insane  and  had  drowned 
herself  unwittingly ;  and  Laertes,  having  returned 
from  France,  had  attempted  a  rebellion  in  revenge  for 
his  father's  death  at  the  hands  of  one  of  the  royal 
family.  Him  the  King,  being  informed  of  Hamlet's 
unexpected  appearance  at  Elsinore,  had  induced  to 
undertake  the  death  of  his  father's  murderer  ;  the  plan 
being  that  in  a  fencing  match  before  the  court  between 
Hamlet  and  Laertes,  the  latter  should  wound  the 
former  with  a  poisoned  and  unbated  foil.  That  Ham- 
let would  accept  the  challenge  there  appeared  to  be 
no  doubt.  For  he  was  strong  of  body,  a  skilful 
swordsman,  and  was  vain  of  his  accomplishment ;  so 
much  so  indeed  that,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  trouble 
about  his  father's  death  and  his  mother's  marriage, 
the  praises  of  Laertes'  fencing,  brought  from  Paris  by 


9b  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

a  French  gentleman,  so  excited  his  envy  that  he  con- 
stantly expressed  his  desire  that  Ophelia's  brother 
might  return  that  he  might  challenge  him  ;  and  he, 
the  sworn  avenger  of  his  father,  he  who  had  a  king- 
dom at  stake,  kept  himself  well  in  practice  for  a  bout 
with  foils. 

Coming  to  Elsinore  after  the  discovery  that  the 
murderer  of  his  father  and  the  seducer  of  his  mother 
had  also  treacherously  sought  his  life,  he  met  Horatio, 
and  strolled  with  him  into  a  churchyard,  and  there  be- 
gan musing  upon  life  and  death,  and  fell  into  banter- 
ing with  a  clown  whom  he  found  digging  a  grave. 
Seeing  a  funeral  of  some  state  approach,  in  which  the 
King  and  Queen  and  the  court  appeared,  he  retired 
with  Horatio  and  watched  the  rites.  But  it  was  not 
until  Laertes  came  forward  as  chief  mourner  and  spoke 
of  his  sister,  that  Hamlet  suspected  that  he  saw  the 
burial  of  Ophelia.  Then,  with  a  sudden  and  tremen- 
dous revulsion  of  feeling,  he  broke  forth  into  pas- 
sionate exclamations  of  love  and  grief ;  and  then,  too, 
at  that  strange,  unfitting  time,  he  claimed  his  royal 
rank,  and  announced  himself  as  The  Dane.  The  sud- 
den turmoil  in  his  unstable  soul  caused  him  to  pour 
out  this  turbid  mingling  of  passionate  grief  and  dis- 
appointed, weakly  self-asserting  ambition.  Laertes 
sprang  at  his  throat  with  the  fierce,  sharp  cry,  "  The 
Devil  take  thy  soul!  "  Hamlet  faced  him  fiercely,  for 
he  was  no  coward,  and  now  was  roused  to  frenzy ;  but 
in  his  very  reply,  meant  to  be  a  threat,  he  went  into  a 
brief  egoistic  explanation  of  his  own  character  and 
motives.  The  foes  were  separated,  and  Hamlet  left 
the  churchyard. 

The  challenge  to  the  fencing  match  was  sent  by  a 
fop  whose  exquisiteness  appeared  no  less  in  his  speech 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      97 

than  in  his  clothes  and  his  conduct ;  and  Hamlet, 
having  now  yet  another  grief  laid  upon  the  burden  of 
his  soul,  amused  himself  with  caricaturing  his  speech 
to  his  face,  probing  him  with  irony,  and  making  him 
go  through  his  little  paces,  unsuspicious  of  the  exhibi- 
tion he  was  making.  The  challenge  was  accepted; 
and  not  only  was  Hamlet  wounded  with  the  poisoned 
foil,  but  by  a  change  of  swords  Laertes  also ;  and  the 
Queen,  who  was  present,  was  poisoned  by  drinking 
from  a  goblet  prepared  for  her  son,  to  make  his 
death  the  surer.  Then  Hamlet,  learning  this^rom 
Laertes,  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  with  no 
thought  of  his  long-deferred  purpose,  and  no  refer- 
ence to  his  father's  fate  and  his  mother's  crime,  but  in 
momentary  resentment  of  that  immediate  treachery, 
rushed  upon  the  King  and  with  his  last  strength  slew 
him.  Cut  off  thus  in  the  early  prime  of  his  manhood 

—  for  by  this  time  he  had  come  to  be  thirty  years  old 

—  he  yet  felt,  even  in  the  agonies  of  an  envenomed 
death,  that  this  was  the  only  possible  solution  of  his 
perplexity,  and  that  to  see  life  fade  away  was  happi- 
ness.    For  seeing  Horatio  seize  the  poisoned  goblet  to 
drink  the  dregs  that  he  might  be  with  his  friend  in 
death,  he  tore  it  away  from  him,  and  begging  him  to 
live  and  vindicate  his  honor,  he  said  in  the  words  put 
upon  his  gasping  lips  by  him  who  sent  him  forth,  with 
just  yet  tender  hand,  a  warning  to  all  after  ages  :  — 

If  thou  didst  ever  hold  me  in  thy  heart, 
Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile, 
And  in  this  harsh  world  draw  thy  breath  in  pain, 
To  tell  my  story. 

That  story ]  I  have  now  told  —  how  lamely  and  inad- 
equately no  one  can  know  better  than  myself  ;  but  as 

1  A  criticism  by  a  distinguished  writer  makes  it  proper  that  I  should 
say  that  this  essay  was  published  in  April,  1870. 
7 


98  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

here  presented  it  may  help  those  who  can  read  it  as 
I  do  to  apprehend  the  lesson  that  it  teaches :  that  a 
man  may  have  kindliness,  and  grace,  and  accomplish- 
ment, high  thoughts  and  good  impulses,  and  even  a 
will  that  can  stand  firmly  up  against  attack  (as  it  were, 
leaning  against  opposition),  and  yet  if  he  have  not 
strong,  urgent,  exclusive  desire,  which  compels  him  to 
put  his  impulses  and  will  into  action,  and  seek  one 
single  object,  if  indeed  he  be  not  ballasted  with  prin- 
ciple and  impelled  by  purpose,  he  will  be  blown 
about  by  every  flaw  of  fortune,  and  be  sucked  down 
into  the  quicksand  of  irresolution  :  —  that  it  is  better, 
with  Fortinbras,  to  make  mouths  at  an  invisible  event, 
than,  with  Hamlet,  to  be  ever  peering  enviously  into 
the  invisible  future  :  —  that,  in  the  words  of  the  wicked 
King,  which  gave  the  key  of  Shakespeare's  meaning, 

That  we  would  do, 

We  should  do  when  we  would  ;  for  this  "would"  changes 
And  hath  abatements  and  delays  as  many 
As  there  are  tongues,  are  hands,  are  accidents; 
And  then  this  "should"  is  like  a  spendthrift  sigh, 
That  hurts  by  easing. 

They  may  understand,  too,  how  difficult  it  is  for  an 
actor  to  embody  a  personage  who  is  of  a  high  mental 
and  moral  type,  and  yet  whose  characteristic  trait  is 
a  negative  quality ;  —  so  difficult,  that  to  present  such 
personage  satisfactorily  demands  a  genius  almost  cor- 
responding (I  do  not  say  equal)  to  his  by  whom  it 
was  created. 

In  the  controversies  over  the  rival  Hamlets  of  the 
stage,  how  comes  it  that  critics  do  not  notice  one 
strong  and  obvious  argument  against  adopting  a  blonde 
chevelure  —  the  fact  that  Hamlet's  father  had  black 
hair?  The  elder  Hamlet's  beard  was,  says  Horatio, 


THE  CASE  OF  HAMLET  THE  YOUNGER.      99 

"  as  I  have  seen  it  in  his  life  —  a  sable  silvered." 
Now,  the  presumption  at  least  is  surely  against  a 
black-haired  father  having  a  yellow-haired  son.  On 
the  other  hand,  how  is  it  that  the  champions  of  a  ro- 
bust Hamlet  do  not  make  anything  of  the  abundant 
proofs  given  in  the  tragedy  that  he  was  meant  to  be  a 
man  of  fine  physique  and  bodily  strength  ?  If  any- 
thing ought  to  be  beyond  controversy  in  the  play,  this 
ought  to  be.  Hamlet  is  always  spoken  of  as  athletic 
and  vigorous.  He  and  all  others  describe  his  father 
as  the  very  perfection  of  manly  strength  and  grace. 
Hamlet  flings  off  Horatio  and  Marcellus  with  ease 
when  they  endeavor  to  hold  him  back  from  following 
the  ghost.  He  is  taken  prisoner  by  the  pirates  be- 
cause he  first  and  alone  succeeds  in  boarding  their 
ship.  He  is  described  by  the  King  as  such  an  adept 
in  horsemanship  and  fencing,  and  so  proud  of  his  ac- 
complishments, that  he  always  burns  to  cope  in  skill 
and  strength  with  any  one  who  is  famed  for  his  mas- 
tery of  such  manly  exercises.  He  flings  off  Laertes 
in  the  struggle  over  the  grave.  In  the  fatal  fencing 
scene  he  is  able  to  tear  from  the  hand  of  Laertes  the 
poisoned  weapon  which  Laertes  had  the  best  reasons 
in  the  world  for  clinging  to  with  all  his  might  and 
main.  He  is  able,  even  in  his  dying  moment,  to  force 
the  poisoned  cup  from  the  hands  of  Horatio.  Fi- 
nally, what  is  the  epitaph  pronounced  over  him  by  For- 
tinbras  ?  Does  Fortinbras  speak  of  him  as  a  gentle 
scholar  ?  He  says  :  — 

Let  four  captains 

Bear  Hamlet,  like  a  soldier,  to  the  stage ; 
For  he  was  likely,  had  he  been  put  on, 
To  have  prov'd  most  royally:  and,  for  his  passage, 
The  soldiers'  music  and  the  rites  of  war 
Speak  loudly  for  him. 


100  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Whatever  may  be  said  for  or  against  other  peculiari- 
ties in  the  personation  of  "  Hamlet,"  the  evidence  is 
irresistible  in  support  of  the  presentation  of  the  prince 
as  a  young  man  of  splendid  physique,  nobly  accom- 
plished in  all  manly  exercises.  The  delicate  student 
theory  has  nothing  whatever  to  sustain  it  except  the 
odd  notion  that  a  man  of  undecided  character,  much 
given  to  casuistry  and  easy  philosophizing,  must  neces- 
sarily be  lank,  lymphatic,  and  feeble. 


THE  FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN. 


ABOUT  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  when 
Venice  was  in  the  height  of  her  power  and  the  full 
flower  of  her  glory,  and  when  she  was  engaged  in  con- 
stant warfare  with  the  Turk,  there  was  among  her 
senators  one  named  Brabantio,  who  was  held  in  honor 
by  his  fellows  and  by  the  Duke,  or  Doge,  himself. 
The  mistress  of  his  household  was  his  young  daughter, 
Desdemoua,  whom  he  loved  the  more  tenderly  because 
her  mother  had  died  in  her  childhood,  and  the  girl  had 
grown  to  early  womanhood  watched  over  only  by  his 
fatherly  eye,  and  had  gradually  come  to  fill  a  wife's 
and  a  daughter's  place  both  in  his  household  and  in 
his  heart. 

The  lack  of  the  restraint  of  a  mother's  solicitude 
and  cautions  had  developed  in  Desdemona  an  inde- 
pendence of  character  and  a  self-reliance  to  which 
otherwise  she  might  not  have  attained  ;  and  this  inde- 
pendence her  position  as  the  head  of  the  domestic  es- 
tablishment of  a  member  of  the  proudest  and  most 
powerful  oligarchy  of  modern  Europe  greatly  strength- 
ened and  confirmed.  Desdemona's  nature  was  gentle, 
submissive,  and  self-sacrificing,  but  at  the  same  time 
earnest,  frank,  and  passionful ;  and  the  result  of  the 
influence  of  such  a  life  as  hers  upon  such  a  nature 
was  a  union  of  boldness,  or  rather  of  openness,  both 
in  thought  and  in  action,  with  a  warmth  and  tender- 


102  sVutilES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

ness  of  feeling  and  a  capacity  of  self-devotion  which 
are  found  only  in  women  of  highly  and  delicately 
strung  organizations.  With  an  imagination  which 
wrought  out  for  her  grand  ideals,  and  a  soul  finely 
attuned  to  all  the  higher  influences  of  life,  she  was  yet 
a  careful  housekeeper,  and  gave  herself  up  loyally  to 
the  duties  imposed  upon  her  by  her  position  in  her 
father's  house.  Notwithstanding  her  beauty,  her  rank, 
and  her  accomplishments,  she  had  suffered  herself  to  be 
little  wooed,  and  had  not  inclined  her  ear  to  the  voice 
of  any  lover.  This  was  partly  because  of  her  youth, 
partly  because  of  her  preoccupation,  but  chiefly  rather 
because  she  cherished  in  her  soul  such  a  lofty  ideal  of 
manhood  that  there  were  few  noble  gentlemen  even  in 
Venice  who  could  captivate  her  eye,  or  touch  her 
heart.  One  young  Venetian  named  Roderigo  had  be- 
come deeply  enamored  of  her  beauty.  He  could  not 
love  her  as  she  would  be  loved,  and  still  less  could  she 
look  upon  him  with  an  eye  of  favor ;  for  he  was  a 
silly  snipe — a  compound  of  self-conceit  and  folly  and 
foppery ;  a  coarse  but  feeble  animal,  with  an  outside 
fantastically  tricked  out  by  his  tailor. 

About  this  time  there  appeared  in  Venice  a  valiant 
soldier  of  fortune  named  Othello.  In  person  he  was 
a  stalwart,  swarthy  Moor,  and  some  persons  have  sup- 
posed that  he  was  a  negro  ;  but  without  reason,  for  he 
was  born  in  one  of  the  Barbary  States  on  the  southern 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  where  his  family  was 
of  noble  rank,  and  on  one  side  at  least  of  kingly 
blood.  Even  the  worst  enemy  he  had,  in  reviling  him, 
did  not  call  him  a  negro,  or  a  blackamoor,  but  a  Bar- 
bary horse.  This  Othello  was  a  man  of  such  valor, 
such  military  skill,  and  such  strength  of  character, 
that  having  obtained  service  under  the  Venetian  State, 


THE   FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN.  103 

he  soon  rose  to  high  rank  in  its  army,  and  became 
one  of  the  most  trusted  of  the  Venetian  captains. 
Brabantio  admired,  and  loved,  and  trusted  him,  and 
received  him  often  at  his  palace ;  and  yet  withal  he 
held  himself  above  this  swarthy  military  adventurer ; 
partly  as  a  proud  Venetian  noble,  and  partly  with  that 
lofty  arrogance  which  the  fair-skinned  man  has  al- 
ways shown  to  his  dark-skinned  brother.  And  thus  it 
happened  that  although  Othello  was  really  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  men  in  Venice,  and  visited  Bra- 
bantio's  house  as  an  intimate,  and  thus  saw  the  beau- 
tiful Desdemona  often,  her  father  never  thought  of 
him  as  a  possible  lover  of  his  daughter.  There  was 
another  reason  which  threw  the  old  senator  off  his 
guard  in  this  respect.  Othello  was  more  than  old 
enough  to  be  Desdemona' s  father.  His  black  locks 
were  streaked  with  gray,  and  his  manner  was  grave, 
reserved,  and  silent.  Had  Desdemona's  mother  been 
alive,  she  would  have  been  more  cautious  ;  for  women, 
especially  those  who  have  had  experience  of  the  world, 
know  that  youth  is  not  always  the  surest  passport  to 
the  heart  of  a  woman,  even  when  she  herself  is  young 
and  beautiful. 

While  Brabantio  and  Othello  talked,  Desdemona 
listened,  and  soon  there  crept  into  her  ears  a  delight 
she  had  never  known  before.  She  came  to  look  upon 
Othello's  visits  as  the  greatest  happiness  of  her  life ; 
and  as  she  gazed  upon  this  gallant  soldier,  she  ere 
long  saw  in  him  not  a  dark-visaged,  half-barbarous 
military  adventurer,  but  her  ideal  of  manhood,  to 
whom  she  was  willing  to  give  a  woman's  love,  and 
whom  she  could  joyfully  accept  as  the  absolute  owner 
and  master  of  her  body  and  her  soul.  The  very  fact 
that  he  had  wandered  from  country  to  country,  offering 


104  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

his  sword  now  to  this  sovereign,  now  to  that,  fighting 
strange  and  savage  people,  encountering  peril  almost 
for  peril's  sake,  and  visiting  places  which,  although 
not  many  miles  from  the  Mediterranean  shores,  were 
then  more  inaccessible  from  Venice  and  less  known 
there  than  the  remotest  region  in  the  world  is  now, 
cast  over  him  an  alluring  charm  in  the  eyes  of  this 
gentle,  home-keeping,  thoughtful  maiden.  It  made  the 
successful  soldier  seem  in  her  eyes  a  sort  of  conqueror 
of  the  world ;  and,  without  even  a  summons  to  sub- 
mit, she  yielded  to  the  conqueror  all  of  the  world  of 
which  she  was  mistress,  herself.  She  did  not  hesitate 
to  show  the  interest  she  felt  in  him,  and  when  he  was 
telling  his  strange  and  perilous  adventures  to  her 
father,  she  would  hasten  from  her  household  duties  to 
sit  with  them  and  gaze  and  listen. 

Othello,  himself  as  modest  as  a  maid,  conscious, 
with  all  his  self-reliance,  of  his  unsettled  position  in 
the  world,  of  his  dark  skin,  and  of  the  difference  in 
years  between  him  and  this  beautiful  girl,  at  last  could 
not  mistake  the  nature  of  her  interest  in  him,  and  was 
captivated  even  more  by  the  sweet  flattery  of  her 
spontaneous  love  than  by  her  grace  and  beauty.  All 
that  he  had  of  fame  or  fortune  he  had  won  by  his 
sword,  at  peril  of  his  life,  through  fierce  endeavor. 
But  here  was  one  of  the  bright  prizes  of  life,  a  decora- 
tion that  he  could  not  have  hoped  for,  a  happiness  of 
which  he  had  hardly  dreamed,  laid  down  before  him, 
to  be  taken  for  the  asking.  And  yet  he  did  not  ask. 
He  who  would  have  wrested  a  crown  from  a  king,  or 
laid  his  mailed  hand  upon  the  green  turban  of  a  sul- 
tan, timidly  shrunk  back  from  lifting  to  his  arms  the 
beautiful  enamored  daughter  of  a  Venetian  senator. 
At  last  Desdemona  asked  him  to  tell  her  in  her  own 


THE   FLORENTINE   ARITHMETICIAN.  105 

eager  ears  the  whole  story  of  his  life  ;  and  when  she  had 
listened  with  sighs  and  signs  of  sympathy,  and  still  he 
looked,  but  spoke  not,  she  told  him  that  her  heart 
longed  for  such  a  man  as  he  had  shown  himself  to  be, 
and  that  if  he  knew  one  man  who  could  tell  her  such 
another  story,  that  would  be  a  sure  way  to  woo  her. 
At  such  an  avowal  what  self -distrust  would  hesitate  ? 
—  and  then  he  told  her  what  she  so  longed  to  hear. 

The  first  step  taken,  eagerness  and  ardor  replaced 
self-distrust  and  timidity  in  the  great  soldier's  breast. 
Of  what  he  had  won  he  would  take  immediate  posses- 
sion. And  yet  he  knew  that  the  senator  would  refuse, 
almost  with  scorn,  to  give  a  Moorish  military  adven- 
turer his  daughter.  This  Desdemona  knew  well  also ; 
and  so  when  Othello  proposed  a  secret  marriage,  she 
at  once  consented ;  but  under  all  their  circumstances 
this  end  was  not  easily  accomplished. 

During  his  brief  wooing,  and  while  he  was  making 
his  arrangements  for  the  secret  marriage,  Othello  had 
one  confidant.  This  was  a  man  much  younger  than 
himself,  one  Michael  Cassio,  a  Florentine,  whom  he 
loved  and  trusted  ;  and  whom,  for  his  gallantry  and  his 
great  accomplishment  in  the  military  and  engineering 
science  of  the  day,  no  less  than  for  his  own  personal 
affection  for  him,  he  had  recently  made  his  lieutenant. 
Cassio  was  one  of  those  men,  not  infrequently  found 
among  those  who  make  arms  their  profession,  who 
unite  solid  abilities  and  thoroughness  of  acquirement 
to  a  handsome  person,  a  gay,  bright  nature,  and  a 
fondness  and  fitness  for  elegant  social  life.  Of  these 
men,  gallant  among  the  gallant,  brave  among  the 
brave,  brilliant  in  society,  self-collected  in  the  field, 
and  capable  in  affairs,  Cassio  was  a  typical  example. 
He  was  trusted  by  all,  and  admired  and  loved  by  all, 


106  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

except  the  envious.  He  was  just  the  man  who  might 
naturally  have  been  himself  the  lover  of  Desdemona  ; 
but  although  among  her  many  admirers,  he  had  never 
enrolled  himself  as  one  of  her  lovers.  He  entered 
heartily  into  the  scheme  of  his  general,  and  served 
him  as  faithfully  and  efficiently  in  love  as  he  had 
done  in  war ;  and  by  his  aid  Othello  privately  married 
Desdemona. 

Among  Othello's  officers  was  a  rival  of  Cassio's, 
lago,  possibly  a  somewhat  older  man,  certainly  a 
more  experienced  soldier,  and  one  of  great  and  widely 
recognized  ability.  He  was  so  highly  thought  of  by 
Othello  himself,  as  well  as  by  others,  and  his  repu- 
tation had  been  so  long  established,  that  he  had  him- 
self expected  to  be  made  the  Moor's  lieutenant ;  and 
some  of  the  great  ones  in  Venice  had  made  personal 
application  to  Othello  in  his  behalf.  But  the  great 
captain  had  preferred  the  less  experienced  but  better 
educated  man,  and  had,  however,  given  to  his  rival 
the  secondary  although  important  and  distinguished 
post  of  standard-bearer,  or  ancient,1  to  lago's  disap- 
pointment and  disgust.  For  the  latter  had  counted 
much  upon  his  reputation  and  his  popularity,  and 
with  reason. 

lago  was  one  of  those  men  who  early  in  life  set 
themselves  to  the  task  of  making  friends  as  a  means 
of  ensuring  success.  His  manners  were  singularly 
frank,  and  of  an  apparent  spontaneous  simplicity 
and  heartiness.  He  seemed  disposed  to  take  a  kindly 
interest  in  every  person  with  whom  he  came  into  con- 
tact. There  was  an  openness  and  candor  in  his  man- 
ner, and  a  readiness  to  sympathize  with  others  and  to 

l  Ensign  came  to  be  called  ancient  from  the  pronunciation  of  s  as 
sli:  ensign  beiug  pronounced  enshin. 


THE   FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN.  107 

serve  them,  a  plain  downrightness  of  speech,  and  a 
freedom  in  his  way  of  giving  advice,  that  made  him 
sought  as  a  confidant,  and  won  him  the  sobriquet  of 
"honest."  No  one  could  doubt  for  a  moment  the 
sincerity  of  such  an  open-faced,  easy-going  fellow, 
who  to  his  heartiness  and  simplicity  of  manner  added 
a  prudence  and  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  world 
which,  added  to  his  genial  manners,  won  him  general 
trust  and  confidence.  In  all  kinds  of  trouble  "  honest 
lago  "  was  consulted ;  and  in  no  kind  did  he  with- 
hold his  aid,  or  at  least  his  sympathy  and  his  advice. 
For  he  was  not  one  of  your  squeamish,  stuck-up 
Pharisees  who  give  offence  by  holding  themselves 
above  the  weaknesses  of  common  mortals  ;  and  so  even 
the  little  creature  Roderigo,  who  hoped  to  corrupt 
Desdemona's  chastity  by  rich  presents,  went  to  him 
for  counsel  and  assistance.  Othello,  who  wished  to 
marry  her,  went  to  Cassio. 

One  person  might  have  been  expected  to  feel  some 
doubts  of  lago's  perfect  honesty  and  good  fellowship, 
his  wife  Emilia ;  but  it  would  seem  that  she  did  not. 
A  handsome  woman,  of  strong  passions  and  weak 
principle,  she  had  been  captivated  by  his  bright, 
cheery  manner,  and  his  soldierly  bearing.  Nor  was 
his  manly  vigor  without  attractions  to  her  maturer 
years ;  and,  as  not  infrequently  happens  in  the  case  of 
such  a  woman  and  such  a  man,  they  married,  she  for 
a  kind  of  besotted  fondness,  he  for  some  point  of 
interest.  She  was  still  a  woman  of  such  personal 
attractions,  and  so  free  in  her  talk  and  her  behavior, 
that  there  was  scandal  about  her  and  Othello  ;  un- 
justly, however,  for  she  still  continued  fond  of  lago, 
although  it  would  seem  that  her  life  with  him  could 
not  but  have  led  her  to  suspect  sometimes  that  his  gay 
off-hand  manner  concealed  a  crafty,  selfish  nature. 


108  STUDIES    IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

When  Othello  had  safely  married  Desdemona  Le 
had  no  further  concealment  in  the  matter,  which  came 
to  the  ears  of  Roderigo  and  lago  on  the  evening  of 
the  wedding-day.  They  went  instantly  together  to 
the  house  of  Brabantio,  hoping  that  Desdemona's 
father,  by  the  exercise  of  his  senatorial  influence, 
could  seize  the  person  of  his  daughter  before  the  con- 
summation of  the  marriage ;  Roderigo's  motive  being 
love  of  the  bride,  lago's,  in  part  a  cold,  interested 
hate  of  the  husband.  For  the  giving  of  the  lieu- 
tenancy to  Cassio  had  roused  all  the  low  passions  of 
his  base,  malignant  nature;  and  although  the  Moor 
had  advanced  him,  his  disappointment  at  not  getting 
the  higher  place  so  rankled  in  his  venomous  bosom 
that  his  whole  mind  was  now  bent  upon  the  ruin  of 
the  lieutenant  at  whatever  torture  of  the  general. 
He  already  dimly  saw  that  Desdemoua's  marriage  to 
the  former,  the  presence  of  the  noble-hearted,  hand- 
some Cassio,  and  the  senseless  passion  of  the  weak 
Roderigo  might  be  united  to  serve  his  purpose.  His 
motive,  however,  was  mixed,  and  was  largely  mer- 
cenary, —  the  hope  of  gain  in  his  pretended  service  of 
the  rich  fool,  Roderigo. 

It  so  happened  that  on  this  very  night  news  reached 
Venice  of  an  expedition  of  the  Turks  against  the 
island  of  Cyprus,  which  was  at  that  time  a  dependency 
of  the  Venetian  State ;  and  as  Brabantio  was  on 
his  way  to  arouse  his  friends  for  the  recovery  of  his 
daughter,  he  was  met  by  Cassio  and  other  messengers 
who  had  been  sent  out  to  summon  him,  as  well  as 
Othello,  to  a  council  called  at  the  Doge's  palace,  to 
decide  what  course  should  be  taken  against  the  Otto- 
man. The  messengers  had  already  come  upon  Othello 
in  the  street,  where  he  was  talking  with  lago,  and 


THE   FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN.  109 

had  bidden  him  to  the  council.  lago  had  told  Cassiq 
that  their  general  had  just  married  —  he  did  not  say 
whom ;  and  Cassio,  faithful  to  the  last,  had  pretended 
ignorance  of  the  lady's  name.  When  Brabantio  saw 
Othello,  in  his  wrath  he  forgot  his  dignity,  and  would 
have  assaulted  him ;  and  for  a  moment  a  bloody  contest 
between  the  two  parties  was  imminent.  But  Othello's 
composed  relf-reliance  was  not  to  be  thus  disturbed. 
With  a  word  he  checked  the  impending  fray,  re- 
minding both  friend  and  foe,  with  a  gentle  touch  of 
pride  and  scorn  that  sat  well  upon  him,  that  as  to 
whether  the  question  were  to  be  decided  by  arms 
Othello  might  disregard  both  the  provocation  of  the 
one  and  the  officious  partisanship  of  the  other.  The 
Moor  was  not  a  man  to  permit  a  street  brawl  about 
his  wife  between  his  friends  and  those  of  his  father- 
in-law.  Hearing  of  the  council,  Brabantio  at  once 
decided  to  lay  his  grievance  before  the  Duke  and  his 
fellow  senators. 

He  did  not  overrate  their  sympathy  or  their  readi- 
ness to  espouse  his  cause ;  for  although  they  were  in 
the  midst  of  a  consultation  upon  the  public  peril,  and 
although  Othello,  who  entered  the  council  chamber 
with  him,  was  greeted  by  the  Duke  with  an  announce- 
ment that  he  must  immediately  proceed  against  the 
Ottoman,  when  Brabantio  broke  in  upon  the  council 
of  war  with  the  declaration  that  the  Moor  had  stolen 
away  his  daughter,  he  was  not  only  listened  to,  but 
Othello  was  at  once  put  upon  his  defence.  Calm  in 
his  consciousness  of  right,  and  in  his  knowledge  of 
the  importance  of  his  services  to  the  Venetian  State, 
he  simply  told  the  story  of  his  wooing  ;  nor  did  he, 
in  his  semi-barbarian  freedom  from  the  convention- 
alism of  European  society,  conceal  that  he  had  not 


110  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

asked  Desdemona  to  be  his  wife  until  she  had  very 
plainly  hinted  that  she  longed  to  have  him  do  so. 
Othello  was  a  magnanimous,  high-minded  man,  but 
he  was  not  quite  a  European  gentleman.  The  Duke 
and  the  senators  saw  in  his  story  the  perfect  justifica- 
tion of  his  conduct ;  and  even  Brabantio,  although  he 
resented  the  implication  that  Desdemona,  who  had 
slighted  the  admiration  of  so  many  young  Venetian 
nobles,  had  been  half  the  wooer  of  her  swarthy, 
middle-aged  lover,  was  compelled  to  admit  that  if 
what  Othello  said  was  true,  his  ground  of  paternal 
complaint  lay  only  against  his  daughter.  Desdemona 
was  sent  for  ;  and  with  perfect  modesty,  but  with  the 
most  unreserved  frankness,  she  avowed  her  love  for 
Othello,  and  that  her  duty  was  now  to  him  first  and 
to  her  father  afterward.  That  question  was  thus 
briefly  ended ;  and  Brabantio  resigned  his  daughter 
to  the  Moor,  with  the  caution  that  the  woman  who 
had  deceived  her  father  might  deceive  her  husband. 
Othello  had  occasion,  although  no  cause,  to  remember 
this  warning. 

But  another  question  immediately  came  up,  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  which  there  was  not  a  new,  but  a  further 
revelation  of  Desdemona' s  nature.  Othello  must  in- 
stantly set  out  for  Cyprus ;  and  he  asked  that  during 
his  absence  his  wife  might  be  placed  in  a  position  be- 
coming the  military  rank  of  her  husband,  and  her  own 
breeding.  Thus  Othello,  under  the  pressure  of  the 
time,  consented,  although  reluctantly,  to  leave  his 
maiden  bride  behind  him ;  but  she  was  not  willing  to 
be  left.  Nor  did  she  conceal  the  nature  of  her  feeling. 
She  said  plainly  that  she  loved  the  Moor  to  live  with 
him ;  that  to  do  so  she  had  set  at  naught  all  the  social 
restraints  with  which  she  had  been  surrounded ;  and 


THE  FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN.  Ill 

that  were  she  to  remain  in  Venice  while  he  went  off 
to  Cyprus,  the  rites  for  which  she  loved  him  were 
bereft  her.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  which 
has  a  bearing  upon  the  conventional  notions  which  are 
professed,  if  not  quite  believed  in  European  society, 
upon  such  subjects,  that  notwithstanding  her  previous 
conduct  toward  Othello,  and  notwithstanding  this  con- 
fession of  the  sentiments  and  passions  of  unmitigated 
nature,  we  do  not  feel  the  slightest  doubt  of  the  purity 
and  the  modesty  —  I  will  not  wrong  womanhood  by 
saying  the  chastity  —  of  Desdemona. 

The  result  was  that  the  young  bride,  her  appeal  being 
supported  by  the  eager  request  of  her  few  hours'  hus- 
band, had  her  way.  The  little  fleet  which  set  sail  im- 
mediately for  Cyprus  bore  Othello,  Desdemona,  Cassio, 
and  lago,  whose  wife,  Emilia,  attended  the  general's 
wife  as  her  maid  and  companion.  Roderigo  also  found 
a  place  in  the  expedition.  Othello  was  in  one  ship  ; 
Desdemona,  escorted  by  lago,  in  another ;  Cassio  in  a 
third.  They  were  separated  by  a  storm ;  and  Cassio's 
ship  arrived  first  at  the  island.  The  next  to  reach  the 
shore  was  that  which  carried  Desdemona,  who  was 
welcomed  by  the  islanders,  with  Cassio  at  their  head, 
lago  lost  no  time  ;  and  at  once  began  to  found  his  plot 
upon  the  assiduous  attention  and  courtesy  which  the 
handsome  and  gallant  lieutenant,  in  conformity  to  the 
manners  of  the  time,  lavished  upon  the  beautiful  wife 
of  his  friend  and  general.  Cassio  was  no  more  than 
courtly,  and  Desdemona's  heart  was  in  Othello's  ship ; 
but  they  kept  gayly  up  the  light  gallantries  of  their 
society.  She,  to  beguile  her  anxious  longing,  assumed 
a  merry  air,  and  seemed  to  amuse  herself  with  lago ; 
and  he,  in  the  brief  time  that  the  party  passed  upon 
the  strand  before  the  arrival  of  Othello,  managed  to 


112  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

exhibit  his  wit,  his  blunt  cynicism,  his  grossness  of 
nature,  and  his  craftiness.  His  wit  all  tended  to  the 
degradation  of  womanhood;  his  eyes  and  his  thoughts 
were  given  entirely  to  the  enmeshing  of  Desdemona  in 
a  pretended  intrigue  with  Cassio. 

When  Othello  after  his  arrival  had  retired  with 
Desdemona,  and  the  rest  had  followed  them,  lago  re- 
mained with  Roderigo  to  fill  his  shallow  pate  with  vile 
slanders  and  gross  suggestions,  which  had  as  their 
starting  point  a  pretended  fickle  passion  of  Desdemona 
for  Cassio,  and  with  temptations  which  were  to  in- 
volve Roderigo  in  an  attempt  to  bring  Cassio  into  dis- 
grace, and  to  bleed  money  into  lago's  hungry  pocket. 
For  it  is  around  Cassio,  the  most  admirable,  the  most 
lovable,  and  the  most  brilliant  figure  in  this  story, 
that  all  its  events  revolve.  It  was  Cassio's  ruin,  not 
Othello's  or  Desdemona's,  that  lago  chiefly  sought.  It 
was  to  his  hate  of  Cassio  that  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice 
his  general  and  his  general's  wife.  The  ancient  was  a 
man,  and  of  course  he  could  not  brook  with  favor  the 
insult  which  scandal  said  that  Othello  offered  him  in 
tile  person  of  his  wife ;  but  he  was  not  s6  loving  a  hus- 
band, or  of  so  delicate  a  sense  of  honor,  that  he  could 
not  and  would  not  have  borne  this  affront,  if  to  do  so 
had  been  to  his  interest.  Indeed,  it  seems  that  he  had 
endured  it  quietly,  and  that  we  should  not  have  heard 
of  it  as  a  motive  to  his  base  action,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  favor  shown  by  Othello  to  Cassio.  It  was  the  ele- 
vation to  the  lieutenancy  of  the  man  whom  he  sneered 
at  as  a  Florentine  arithmetician  that  galled  the  ancient, 
and  determined  him  to  sacrifice  the  happiness,  and  if 
necessary  the  lives,  of  all  who  stood  in  the  way  of  his 
base  ambition  and  his  greed  of  gold.  Moreover  he 
suspected  that  the  handsome  young  soldier  had,  no  less 


THE   FLORENTINE   ARITHMETICIAN.  113 

than  the  Moor,  won  the  favor  of  Emilia.  And  more 
than  all  he  hated  him  for  his  goodness,  and  for  the 
love  all  bore  him  —  for  the  daily  beauty  in  his  life, 
which  he  felt  as  a  ceaseless,  silent  reproach  of  his  own 
moral  ugliness.  Cassio  is  the  central  figure  of  this 
tragical  story,  the  single  object  of  lago's  machina- 
tions. 

The  Turkish  fleet  had  been  scattered  and  wrecked 
by  the  storm,  which  had  only  separated  the  Venetian 
ships ;  and  Othello  directed  a  triumphant  rejoicing  to 
be  proclaimed  in  Cyprus.  Cassio  as  lieutenant  had  a 
general  supervision  of  the  police  of  the  garrison,  the 
details  of  which  he  left  to  lago's  management ;  and 
the  ancient  determined  that  night  to  bring  the  lieuten- 
ant to  disgrace  in  the  eyes  of  his  general.  Cassio, 
with  all  his  manly  merit  and  admirable  qualities,  was 
not  without  points  of  weakness  in  his  nature ;  and  one 
of  these,  which  may  be  called  almost  physiological, 
and  against  which,  to  his  credit,  he  watched  carefully, 
was  an  extreme  sensitiveness  to  the  excitement  of 
wine.  He  could  not  safely  drink  as  most  men  then 
drank,  or  even  as  many  do  now.  The  draught  which 
steadier  stomachs  and  stronger  heads  bore  unmoved 
disturbed  and  inflamed  his  more  sensitive  organization. 
In  this  mere  fact  there  was  no  degradation  to  Cassio ; 
no  more  than  there  is  to  some  men  in  their  painful 
susceptibility  to  vegetable  poisons,  such  as  that  of  the 
ivy  vine,  which  others  handle  with  impunity.  It  was 
a  mere  trait  of  his  physiological  organization.  If  he 
had  not  guarded  himself  against  it,  he  would  have 
been  culpable ;  but  this  he  did.  Of  that  which 
others  took  freely  he  denied  himself  the  little  which 
unsettled  his  otherwise  steady  brain.  But  on  occa- 
sion of  the  rejoicings  lagq  managed  to  overcome  Cas- 

8 


114  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

sio's  resolutions,  and  to  bring  him  to  drink  the  one 
draught  that  was  fatal  to  his  self-control.  The  design- 
ing ancient  apparently  threw  himself  with  his  whole 
soul  into  the  revel ;  in  which  he,  not  Cassio  or  even 
Roderigo,  sang  jolly  drinking  songs.  The  result  was 
that  the  lieutenant,  the  officer  of  the  night,  got  raving 
drunk,  and  had  a  brawl  with  Roderigo  which  grew  to 
such  proportions  that  Othello  himself  was  brought 
down  from  Desdemona's  bridal  bed  to  quell  it.  In 
his  wrath  he  cashiered  his  beloved  lieutenant  on  the 
spot. 

lago  might  now  have  been  content ;  for  if  Cassio's 
disgrace  was  confirmed,  he  himself  might  have  been 
sure  of  the  lieutenancy.  But  he  knew  well  the  mag- 
nanimity of  Othello's  nature,  and  his  love  of  Cassio  ; 
and  he  knew  also  how  strongly  his  rival's  virtues  and 
accomplishments  would  plead  in  his  behalf,  not  only 
with  Othello,  but  with  all  to  whose  advice  and  en- 
treaties the  general  would  be  apt  to  listen.  Moreover 
the  fiends  of  envy,  hatred,  and  jealousy  had  now  taken 
possession  of  him,  and  were  running  riot  in  his  soul ; 
and  having  once  tasted  of  the  hellish  draught  that  they 
had  brewed  to  celebrate  their  triumph,  it  operated 
upon  him  morally  as  wine  did  upon  Cassio  physically ; 
he  longed  to  drench  his  soul  in  it  for  the  mere  delight 
he  felt  in  the  sulphurous  excitement.  Therefore,  not 
only  to  make  Cassio's  destruction  sure,  but  to  feed  full 
his  lust  of  revenge  and  wickedness,  he  determined  to 
carry  out  his  half-formed  plan  of  involving  in  mortal 
animosity  the  two  men  who  had  provoked  in  him  such 
kind  of  jealousy  as  his  sordid  soul  could  feel.  Assum- 
ing his  honest,  sympathizing,  confidential  manner,  he 
condoled  with  Cassio  upon  his  misfortune,  made  light 
of  it,  and  advised  him  to  solicit  Desdemona's  influence 


THE    FLORENTINE   ARITHMETICIAN.  115 

with  her  husband  for  his  restoration  ;  assuring  him 
that  Othello  could  deny  her  nothing.  His  purpose 
was  to  represent  to  Othello  that  Desdemona,  upon 
whose  kind  feeling  for  Cassio  he  knew  that  he  could 
rely,  was  interceding  for  her  paramour. 

The  plot  succeeded  ;  for  it  was  well  laid,  the  materials 
were  at  hand,  and  the  conditions  were  those  of  nature. 
Cassio  easily  enlisted  the  sympathies  of  Desdemona  in 
his  cause ;  and  she  pleaded  for  him,  not  only  for  kind- 
ness' sake,  and  for  her  admiration  and  regard  for  the 
man,  but  because  she  believed  that  she  was  doing  her 
husband  a  benefit  by  striving  to  bring  back  into  his 
service  so  brave  a  soldier  and  so  accomplished  an  offi- 
cer. She  felt,  too,  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  Cassio  for 
his  good  offices  in  helping  her  to  her  husband,  and  re- 
membered with  a  delicious  pleasure  how,  when  she, 
with  womanish  craft,  had  dispraised  the  man  she  loved, 
Cassio  had  defended  him,  and  thus  by  opposing  her 
had  fixed  himself  forever  in  her  good  graces. 

lago  soon  found  his  opportunity.  Cassio  was  beg- 
ging of  Desdemona  the  intercession  in  his  behalf 
which  she  heartily  promised,  when  Othello  was  an- 
nounced, and  the  lieutenant,  dreading  to  meet  his 
superior  until  his  peace  was  made,  retired  precipi- 
tately, just  as  Othello  entered,  accompanied  by  lago. 
Desdemona  lost  no  time,  but  at  once  began  her  inter- 
mediatory  office,  and  plied  her  husband  with  all  the 
arguments  she  could  use,  and  with  all  the  blandish- 
ments of  a  consciously  beautiful  and  beloved  woman. 
When  she  retired,  having  won  more  than  half  a  prom- 
ise from  her  husband,  lago  dropped  a  hint  contain- 
ing just  that  little  element  of  perverted  truth  that 
makes  a  lie  more  malignant  and  effective,  that  Cassio 
had  shunned  Othello  because  he  felt  guilty  that  he 


116  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

should  be  round  in  private  with  Desdemona.  He  had 
some  difficulty  in  effecting  a  lodgment  of  suspicion  in 
Othello's  mind  ;  but  at  last,  with  fiendish  craft,  he 
accomplished  it;  and  from  that  moment  he  worked 
this  vein  of  mischief  with  unceasing  pertinacity  and 
subtle  skill,  until  at  last  the  rough,  swarthy,  middle- 
aged  soldier's  soul  was  filled  with  the  wretched  thought 
that  his  beautiful  wife  was  listening  favorably  to  the 
guilty  suit  of  this  handsome,  splendid  young  Floren- 
tine gallant. 

lago,  however,  felt  the  need  of  some  material  evi- 
dence in  support  of  his  insinuations  ;  and  as  time  wore 
on,  and  some  week  or  two  had  passed,  accident  pro- 
vided him  with  what  he  sought.1 

Othello  had  given  Desdemona  a  handkerchief,  re- 
markable in  itself,  and  dear  to  them  both  as  the  first 
token  of  his  love.  It  was  supposed,  according  to  the 
superstition  of  the  time,  to  have  peculiar  virtues  be- 
cause it  had  been  woven  with  spells  by  an  Egyptian 
sibyl.  lago,  from  a  vague  notion  that  it  might  be 
useful  to  him  in  his  plans,  had  often  begged  his  wife 
Emilia  to  steal  it  from  Desdemona.  But  although  the 
not  over  scrupulous  waiting  gentlewoman  was  will- 
ing to  oblige  her  husband  in  this  respect,  the  young 
wife  guarded  the  token  so  carefully  that  Emilia  had 
not  been  able  to  accomplish  the  theft.  One  day,  how- 
ever, when  she  was  in  attendance  upon  Desdemona, 
Othello  had  come  in  tormented  with  jealousy,  and  his 
wife,  supposing  that  he  was  ill,  had  offered  to  bind  his 
brow  with  the  handkerchief,  which  he  had  petulantly 
thrust  aside,  so  that  it  fell  upon  the  floor.  Emilia  saw 
the  opportunity  of  obliging  her  husband,  picked  up 

1  This  lapse  of  time  is  assumed  as  a  necessary  condition  of  the  narrative. 
I  doubt  if  it  could  be  demonstrated. 


THE   FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN.  117 

the  silken  token,  and  concealed  it  just  as  he  came  in. 
She  was  in  some  doubt  whether  to  give  it  to  him ;  but 
soon  he  snatched  it  from  her  only  half  unwilling  hand  ; 
and  the  circle  of  this  caitiff's  evidence  was  completed. 
To  drop  the  handkerchief  where  Cassio  should  find 
it,  and  to  tell  Othello  that  he  had  it,  was  matter  of 
course.  The  consequences  might  have  been  sufficient 
to  lago's  purpose  in  any  case ;  but  fortune  helped  him. 
Cassio,  with  a  weakness  not  uncommon  in  men  of  his 
sort,  had  become  enamored  of  a  beautiful  courtesan, 
Bianca,  who  doted  on  him ;  and  to  her  he  gave  this 
handkerchief.  And  one  day,  after  Othello  had  in 
vain  demanded  the  handkerchief  from  the  distracted 
Desdemona,  and  while  he  was  watching  Cassio,  who 
should  come  in,  stung  with  jealousy,  but  Bianca,  to 
fling  the  handkerchief  into  Cassio's  face  as  the  gift 
of  a  new  mistress  ;  and  thus  the  Moor  saw,  as  he  sup- 
posed, his  first  love-token  to  Desdemona  in  the  hands 
of  the  cast-off  mistress  of  his  wife's  paramour. 

This  had  happened  just  after  lago  had  set  Othello 
on  the  watch  to  see  how  lightly  Cassio  spoke  to  him  of 
Desdemona  and  her  love,  the  real  subject  of  their  talk 
being  Bianca.  For  lago,  with  a  craft  and  cruelty  be- 
yond that  anywhere  related  of  the  devil  and  his  angels, 
went  steadily  on,  under  his  guise  of  honesty  and  hearty 
affection  for  Othello,  to  lead  him  into  a  frenzy  of  jeal- 
ousy, which  would  ensure  Cassio's  death.  Whether 
Desdemona  lived  or  died,  he  did  not  care,  not  the  tell- 
ing of  a  lie  ;  and  as  for  Othello,  so  he  might  have  re- 
venge by  torturing  him  with  suspicion,  he  would  have 
much  rather  had  him  live,  that  he  might  be  his  lieuten- 
ant. How  he  effected  his  purpose,  subtly  suggesting  oc- 
casion of  jealousy  while  openly  warning  Othello  against 
it ;  how  he  seemed  devoted,  heart  and  soul,  to  the  man 


118  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

whom  he  was  slowly  and  coolly  driving  mad  ;  how  at 
last,  when  the  Moor's  blood  was  thoroughly  infused 
with  the  venom  that  lay  under  this  aspic  tongue,  he 
changed  his  tactics,  and  turning  directly  round,  bore 
false  witness  against  Cassio  and  Desdemona,  it  is 
needless  to  set  forth  in  detail.  One  point  is  to  be  re- 
marked as  to  Othello.  When  his  suspicions  were 
aroused  to  that  exasperating  pitch  which  is  not  cer- 
tainty, but  adds  to  all  the  settled  pain  of  certainty  the 
irritating  torment  of  suspense,  he  suddenly  turned 
upon  lago  and  demanded  with  dreadful  threats  that 
he  should  prove  Desdemona  unchaste,  menacing  him 
with  worse  than  a  dog's  death  if  he  should  fail  to 
do  so. 

Othello  could  conceive  of  no  middle  course  or  com- 
promise in  this  matter.  He  was  not  really  jealous,  as 
a  woman  is  jealous,  of  his  rival.  His  pang  was  that 
which  was  inflicted  by  the  consciousness  of  a  mon- 
strous, hideous  wrong  inflicted  by  the  hand  he  most 
loved  —  of  the  sight  of  that  which  he  held  purest  and 
best,  self-fouled  and  smirched  before  his  eyes.  Had 
Desdemona  been  in  his  thought  still  chaste,  she  might 
have  admired  the  handsome  Cassio  to  the  top  of  her 
bent ;  she  might  even  have  ceased  to  love  her  hus- 
band, and  the  depths  of  Othello's  soul  would  have 
been  untroubled.  And  even  now  he  was  ready  to  be- 
lieve in  her  absolutely ;  and  had  lago  failed  to  prove 
his  accusations  by  an  accumulation  of  evidence  that 
would  have  convinced  any  mind,  the  Moor  would  still 
have  given  his  heart  and  his  trust  wholly  to  Desde- 
mona, and  would  have  spurned  her  accuser  to  de- 
struction. 

Meantime  Cassio  pressed  his  suit  to  Desdemona, 
to  use  her  power  to  bring  him  again  into  Othello's 


THE  FLORENTINE   ARITHMETICIAN.  119 

favor;  and  Desdemona,  as  unsuspecting  as  Cassio 
himself  of  any  peril  to  either  in  so  doing,  lost  no  op- 
portunity to  entreat  Othello  to  take  back  his  cashiered 
lieutenant,  clenching  with  every  sweet  entreaty  the 
suspicions  that  lago  had  driven  through  Othello's 
heart.  When  at  last  Othello  saw  the  handkerchief  re- 
turned by  Bianca  to  Cassio,  he  determined  to  kill 
Desdemona,  and  asked  lago  to  get  him  poison  ;  but  he, 
partly  in  craft,  not  to  be  implicated  in  the  murder, 
partly  in  diabolical  ingenuity  and  delight  which  his 
base  soul  had  developed  in  the  details  of  the  dread- 
ful business  he  was  managing,  advised  Othello  rather 
to  strangle  her  in  her  bed ;  tempting  him  with  the 
thought  that  she  would  then  be  sacrificed  upon  the  very 
place  made  sacred  by  the  marriage  vow  which  she  had 
violated.  The  suggestion  captivated  the  imagination 
of  Othello,  and  he  decided  to  do  the  murder  that 
night. 

He  might  have  relented  —  for  all  the  while  his  love 
for  Desdemona  was  unabated  —  had  it  not  been  that 
just  at  this  time  an  incident  occurred  in  which  Cassio 
again  was  honorably  involved,  and  which  indirectly 
confirmed  his  suspicions.  Ludovico,  a  kinsman  of 
his  wife's,  arrived  from  Venice  with  despatches  from 
the  Senate  to  Othello,  and,  entering  with  Desdemona, 
he  presented  them.  They  recalled  Othello,  and  gave 
his  place  to  Cassio.  To  inquiries  which  Ludovico 
naturally  made  about  Cassio,  Desdemona  replied  with 
perfect  simplicity,  owning  her  grief  for  the  breach  be- 
tween the  lieutenant  and  her  husband,  and  avowing 
her  regard  for  Cassio ;  and  when  she  heard  that 
Othello  was  called  back  to  Venice,  and  that  Cassio 
would  have  his  office,  she,  longing  to  be  at  home  again, 
and  rejoicing  at  Cassio's  good  fortune,  said  that  she 


120  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

was  glad  to  hear  this  news.  All  these  expressions  of 
natural  feeling,  made  as  she  was  talking  apart  with 
her  kinsman,  drove  Othello  mad,  and  at  the  last,  calling 
her  devil,  he  struck  her.  She  did  not  for  a  moment 
resent  the  injury  and  insult,  offered  her  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Ludovico  and  the  other  messengers  from 
Venice,  but  merely  said,  "  I  have  not  deserved  this  ;  " 
and  from  this  time,  through  all  the  foul  abuse  that 
Othello  heaped  upon  her  until  she  took  her  death  from 
his  hands,  she,  slandered,  outraged,  and  finally  mur- 
dered, clung,  in  the  innocency  of  her  pure,  warm 
nature,  to  the  love  that  was  proving  her  destruction. 
The  blood  in  his  half -savage  veins  now  running  fire, 
Othello  went  straight  to  Desdemona's  chamber  to  ac- 
cuse her  openly  of  adultery.  He  found  Emilia  there, 
and  endeavored  to  get  from  her  some  testimony  in  sup- 
port of  the  evidence  he  already  had ;  but  in  vain. 
Emilia  spoke  out  stoutly  for  the  honor  of  the  mistress 
that  she  loved.  Being  sent  for  her,  she  returned  with 
her,  and  remained  until  Othello,  addressing  her  as  if 
she  were  Desdemona's  bawd,  requested  her  to  leave 
them  alone  together ;  doing  this  with  a  motive  that 
prompted  a  like  action  soon  after.  When  Emilia  had 
gone  out,  Othello  began  his  accusation  of  Desdemona, 
but  at  first  not  in  plain  terms.  And  she,  chaste,  lov- 
ing, unsuspecting,  did  not  at  first  understand  him  ;  but 
supposing  that  he  was  angered  at  being  recalled,  and 
that  he  regarded  her  father  as  the  instigator  of  his  re- 
moval, she  prayed  him  not  to  lay  the  blame  on  her,  and 
in  a  most  touching  manner  reminded  him  that  if  he 
had  lost  her  father's  favor,  so  had  she.  At  last  she  sus- 
pected what  was  passing  in  his  thoughts  ;  and  finally 
she  heard  herself  be-strumpeted  by  the  very  lips  for 
whose  kisses  she  had  committed  her  downright  violence 


THE   FLORENTINE   ARITHMETICIAN.  121 

and  storm  of  fortunes.  Yet  more  and  worse  :  Othello 
having  said  the  worst  that  man  can  say  to  woman,  not 
content  with  this,  called  in  Emilia,  and  before  his 
wife's  eyes  paid  her  the  wages  of  her  assumed  bawdry ; 
doing  this,  however,  not  so  much  to  insult  his  wife  as 
to  torment  his  own  soul  by  putting  Desdemona  on  the 
lowest  grade  of  womanhood,  and  his  intercourse  with 
her  on  the  lowest  footing.  In  his  frenzy  he  tore  open 
his  own  wound  to  pour  in  fire. 

Emilia,  leaving  Desdemona  stunned  with  the  blow 
her  heart  had  received  from  Othello's  hand,  went  out 
to  bring  in  lago  to  her  mistress's  succor.  For  not 
even  yet  did  lago's  very  wife  suspect  that  this  honest 
fellow  had  any  hand  in  the  dreadful  business  that  was 
going  on.  And  when  lago,  with  expressions  of  won- 
der and  sympathy,  asked  how  all  this  could  be,  his 
wife  answered  him  that  she  was  sure  some  villain,  some 
subtle  scoundrel,  had  invented  slanders  against  her 
mistress  to  get  some  office ;  and  the  simple,  honest  fel- 
low replied,  "  Fie,  there  's  no  such  man  ;  it  is  impos- 
sible." Now  Emilia  made  her  answer  in  no  sarcastic 
mood,  and  with  no  covert  meaning.  It  is  important 
to  remember,  as  indicative  of  the  sort  of  man  lago 
was,  and  of  the  hold  which  his  blunt,  off-hand,  honest- 
seeming  manner  had  given  him  upon  all,  that  not  one  of 
those  who  knew  him  most  intimately,  not  even  his  very 
wife,  suspected  his  agency  in  this  tragedy  until  its  last 
dreadful  scene  was  enacted.  Emilia,  although  her 
breast  was  disturbed  by  some  vague  general  doubts  as 
to  lago,  had  no  suspicions  of  him  in  regard  to  Desde- 
mona, and  loved  and  trusted  him  to  the  last. 

And  now  the  inevitable  end  was  near.  lago,  pro- 
fessing to  avenge  Othello's  wrong,  had  undertaken  to 
kill  Cassio  that  night,  that  the  two  paramours  might 


122  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

be  taken  off  together.  But  he  was  too  crafty  to  use 
his  own  sword  when  another's  was  at  his  hand.  Rod- 
erigo  and  his  ridiculous  passion  for  Desdemona  here 
come  in  again  as  the  incongruous  element  which  is 
found  in  all  human  affairs  ;  and  lago,  by  persuading 
Roderigo  that  if  he  would  but  kill  Cassio,  he  might 
possess  Desdemona,  brought  him  up  to  the  desperate 
point  of  assassination.  Cassio,  however,  was  pro- 
tected by  a  secret,  or  flexible  coat  of  mail,  worn  under 
his  doublet,  and  when  Roderigo  assaulted  him  he  was 
unhurt,  and  himself  wounded  Roderigo  severely.  But 
lago,  who  had  been  watching  the  event,  rushed  in  from 
behind,  cut  Cassio  in  the  leg,  and  fled.  Cassio's  outcries 
brought  assistance,  and  it  came  partly  in  the  person  of 
lago,  who  reentered  in  his  shirt,  with  a  light  in  one 
hand  and  a  sword  in  the  other,  and  who  immediately 
avenged  Cassio  by  stabbing  Roderigo  to  death.  This 
lago  did,  not  only  to  rid  himself  of  Roderigo's  evi- 
dence against  him,  but  to  secure  himself  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  money  and  jewels  of  which  he  had  cheated 
the  poor  fop,  with  the  pretence  of  giving  them  to  Des- 
demona. The  catastrophe  of  this  great  tragedy  was 
brought  about  quite  as  much  by  the  mercenary  as  by 
the  malicious  motives  of  him  by  whom  it  was  con- 
trived. 

Othello  entered  his  wife's  bed-chamber  to  put  her 
to  death  almost  as  if  he  were  a  priest  about  to  perform 
a  human  sacrifice  at  the  command  of  his  supreme 
deity.  The  turbulence  of  his  passion  had  subsided, 
and  before  the  death-bed  of  his  love  he  stood  rather 
heart-broken  than  revengeful.  He  was  a  minister  of 
justice,  called  upon  to  execute  judgment  upon  the  best 
beloved  of  his  soul.  He  might  have  rushed  upon  her 
and  smothered  her  sleeping ;  for  she  slept,  although 


THE  FLORENTINE  ARITHMETICIAN.  123 

she  had  had  vague  apprehensions  of  some  impending 
evil.  Othello,  however,  went  quietly  to  Desdemona's 
bed,  and  talked  to  her  and  kissed  her  till  she  awoke. 
Then  she,  not  yet  suspecting  his  purpose,  asked  him  to 
come  to  bed.  His  answer  revealed  at  once  the  end 
before  her  ;  but  she  was  still  ignorant  of  the  cause  of 
his  murderous  intent ;  so  much  so  that  she  simply 
asked  him  what  it  was,  almost  as  for  mere  informa- 
tion. Then  he  told  her  that  she  had  given  his  hand- 
kerchief to  Cassio,  and  she  to  her  instant  denial  added 
the  entreaty  that  he  would  send  for  the  man  and  ask 
him.  And  not  till  now  was  the  turning  point  of  this 
long  story  passed,  and  hopelessly.  For  if  Othello  had 
thought  Cassio  was  alive,  he,  whatever  his  belief  in 
regard  to  Desdemona,  would,  being  the  man  he  was, 
have  surely  sent  for  him,  and  the  whole  matter  would 
have  been  explained.  But  he  answered  Desdemona 
that  Cassio  had  confessed  his  guilt  with  her,  and  that 
honest  lago  had  for  that  reason  stopped  his  mouth  for- 
ever. Then  Desdemona,  simple  and  outspoken,  even 
in  her  extremity,  exclaimed,  "  Alas  !  he  is  betrayed, 
and  I  am  undone."  This  seeming  lament  for  her 
lover  before  her  husband's  face  put  fire  to  Othello's 
soul,  and  in  a  moment  he  wrought  his  dreadful  ven- 
geance. 

As  he  stood  horror-stricken  before  the  body  of  her 
who  had  been  his  wife,  he  heard  the  voice  of  Emilia 
outside  calling  him  in  alarm  ;  and  then  again  he  heard 
it  not ;  knowing  nothing  but  the  thought  of  what  he 
had  just  done.  Emilia  when  she  gained  admittance 
told  him  of  the  murderous  fray,  and  that  Cassio  was 
not  killed  ;  and  while  she  was  relating  this,  Desde- 
mona revived  a  moment  to  say  that  she  was  falsely 
murdered,  to  accuse  herself  of  her  own  death,  and  to 


124  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

utter  with  her  dying  breath  her  undying  love  for 
Othello.  Emilia,  whose  tongue  was  always  free,  who 
always  had  "  the  courage  of  her  opinions,"  and  the 
blemishes  in  whose  character  were  atoned  for  by  a  cer- 
tain magnanimity  of  soul,  spoke  her  mind  plainly  as 
to  the  nature  of  Othello's  act ;  and  when  he  told  her 
that  her  husband  was  the  accuser  of  Desdemona  she 
was  at  first  absolutely  incredulous ;  but  on  Othello's 
reiteration  of  his  assertion,  with  commendation  of 
lago's  honesty,  the  possibility  of  its  truth  dawned 
upon  her,  and  she  cursed  him  bitterly.  Then  she 
gave  the  alarm,  which  brought  in  all  who  were  within 
call,  including  lago.  Her  first  words  were  prompted 
by  her  remaining  confidence  in  this  vilest  of  all  men 
known  in  story ;  so  double-faced  was  he  even  to  his 
wife,  and  so  trust-inspiring  was  the  face  he  showed 
the  world.  She  called  upon  him  to  speak  and  dis- 
prove the  assertions  of  Othello,  confidently  uttering 
her  own  disbelief  that  he  was  such  a  villain  as  those 
assertions  made  him,  and  showing,  as  well  as  saying, 
that  her  heart  was  full  of  many  woes.  Here  and 
throughout  this  final  scene  of  the  tragedy,  which  was 
also  to  be  the  final  scene  of  her  own  life,  this  loose- 
mannered,  loose-tongued  woman  rose  into  a  grandeur 
of  self-abandonment  and  devotion  to  truth  and  love 
in  which  she  towered  above  all  others  present,  even 
Othello  himself,  and  became  the  ruling  spirit  of  the 
catastrophe. 

lago,  seeing  Desdemona  dead,  and  believing  Cassio 
to  be  so,  had  no  longer  a  motive  for  concealment,  and 
owned  that  he  had  told  Othello  the  story  that  had 
maddened  him,  which  he  said  was  true.  Emilia  in- 
stantly ranged  herself  on  the  side  of  the  right,  and 
gave  her  husband  the  lie ;  feeling  as  she  did  so  that  it 


THE   FLORENTINE   ARITHMETICIAN.  125 

would  be  at  the  cost  of  her  life.  The  complication 
was  soon  explained,  and  Othello  by  a  few  words  found 
that  he  was  the  murderer  of  an  innocent,  loving  wife, 
for  whose  life  he  would  have  given  his  own  ten  times 
over.  He  rushed  at  lago  with  his  sword  ;  but  the  man 
who  a  few  days  before  would  have  slain  or  scattered  a 
company  of  lagos  missed  his  aim  ;  and  the  villain,  after 
mortally  wounding  his  wife,  escaped,  and  the  valiant 
Moor,  as  he  was  called,  was  easily  disarmed.  He  got 
another  sword ;  but  he  felt  that  it  was  harmless  in  his 
unnerved  hand,  and  thenceforth  he  abandoned  himself 
to  his  great  despair.  Soon  the  wounded  Cassio,  the 
noble  and  innocent  occasion  of  all  this  sorrow,  was 
brought  in  with  his  enemy  a  prisoner  in  his  train ;  not, 
however,  to  suffer  death  at  the  hands  of  Othello,  who, 
again  attacking,  only  succeeded  in  wounding  him.  In 
the  hope  of  involving  Othello's  fate  with  his,  and  thus 
of  possibly  escaping  the  full  punishment  of  his  crime, 
he  had  confessed  that  the  Moor  and  he  had  plotted 
Cassio's  death ;  and  this  confession  Ludovico  then  an- 
nounced. Their  intended  victim,  bleeding  in  body  and 
in  soul,  but  with  his  noble  heart  still  full  of  love,  said 
only,  "  Dear  general,  I  never  gave  you  cause."  And 
then  the  great  captain,  coming  to  him  and  bowing  his 
head  and  abasing  himself  before  his  young  subordi- 
nate, said,  "  I  do  believe  it,  and  I  ask  your  pardon." 
It  was  all  that  Othello  could  then  do.  And  now  lago, 
completely  baffled,  took  temporary  refuge  in  the  sullen 
silence  behind  which  guilt  often  skulks,  and  refused 
to  utter  one  word  in  explanation  of  the  machinations 
which  had  brought  about  this  awful  catastrophe. 

For  Othello,  being  the  man  he  was,  there  remained 
but  one  exit  from  the  unspeakable  and  unendurable 
position  in  which  he  stood ;  and  he  took  it  quickly. 


126  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Disarming  the  suspicions  of  those  around  him  by  the 
calm  delivery  of  a  message  to  the  Venetian  Senate, 
and  by  the  relation  of  a  vengeance  he  had  taken  upon 
a  malignant  Turk,  with  his  own  hand  he  pierced  his 
bursting  heart,  and  dying  by  Desdemona's  side  breathed 
his  last  breath  upon  her  lips. 

Of  all  the  chief  personages  in  this  sad  story,  only 
he  who  was  the  pivot  and  the  central  figure  of  it  lived 
to  witness  its  end ;  and  he  saw  it  in  sad  triumph. 
Brabantio  had  sunk  under  the  desertion  of  the 
daughter  who  had  been  the  light  of  his  home  and  the 
darling  of  his  old  age  ;  the  silly  Roderigo,  and  Emilia 
who  had,  at  least,  the  nobility  of  faith  and  truth  and 
love,  had  met  death  at  la  go's  hands  ;  Othello  and 
Desdemoiia  lay  lifeless  in  each  other's  arms,  a  sacrifice 
to  the  revenge  of  a  mercenary,  slighted  hypocrite ;  and 
the  spotted  monster  lago  was  borne  out  to  end  his  life 
in  torture  at  the  discretion  of  his  intended  victim,  the 
Florentine  arithmetician ;  for  Cassio  ruled  in  Cyprus. 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEK 


WHO  knows  where  the  Forest  of  Arden  is  ?  Who 
cares  to  know,  that  has  dipped  his  lips  in  the  springs 
of  beauty  and  delight  that  are  ever  flowing  there  ? 
Such  a  man  hardly  deserves  to  enjoy  —  if  indeed  he 
can  really  feel  —  the  cool  twilight  charm  that  dwells 
beneath  its  high  bending  boughs,  or  the  bright  gleams 
that  gild  the  green  sward  of  its  open  glades.  Certain 
men  far  gone  in  membership  of  the  Universal  Geo- 
graphical and  Egotistical  Society,  which  has  existed 
in  all  times  and  in  all  lands,  have  indeed  discovered 
that  this  forest  was  in  France,  near  the  river  Meuse, 
between  Charlemont  and  Rocroy,  not  far  from  the 
town  where  the  French  met  their  final  defeat  in  their 
last  war,  Sedan.  But  as  for  me,  I  believe  that  this  en- 
chanted and  enchanting  forest  was  not  far  from  the 
seacoast  of  Bohemia ;  or  mayhap  that  it  was  that  very 
wood  near  Athens  through  which  Hermia  and  Lysan- 
der,  Helena  and  Demetrius  pursued  each  other  with 
such  Puck-bewitched  cross-purposes,  where  the  slayer 
of  the  Minotaur  and  the  Queen  of  the  Amazons 
hunted  and  made  stately  court,  while  Oberoii  and  Ti- 
tania  quarrelled  and  made  up  about  her  little  hench- 
man, and  glorious  Nick  Bottom,  crown-prince  of  all 
egoists,  sought  to  play  the  lion,  and  like  many  egoists 
ended  in  playing  the  donkey ;  or  that  perhaps  it  was 
in  the  midst  of  the  still- vex'd  Bermoothes,  which,  not- 


128  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

withstanding  certain  solemn  proof  that  it  was  the  Ber- 
mudas, I  am  sure  was  one  of  those  floating,  wandering 
islands  that  gladdened  and  misled  the  happy  mariners 
of  three  or  four  centuries  ago,  who  were  not  brought 
down  to  that  sorrowful  barrenness  of  soul  that  comes 
of  knowing  everything. 

Wherever  this  Forest  of  Arden  is  or  may  have 
been,  it  is  the  scene  of  a  story  that  makes  it  more  than 
any  other  the  home  of  idyllic  romance  in  the  world's 
memory.  We  think  of  it  without  giving  it  locality. 
There  dukes  unknown  to  heralds  and  genealogists, 
banished  from  nameless  principalities  by  revolutions 
unheard  of  in  history,  sought  refuge  and  found  happi- 
ness, living  lives  of  impossible  delight.  There  lovers, 
fleeing  from  each  other,  met  like  mountains  removed 
with  earthquakes,  where  they  had  least  hope  of  meet- 
ing. There  shepherds,  and  Court-fools,  and  English 
hedge-priests,  and  lions,  and  gilded  serpents,  and  palm 
trees  were  found  together  without  the  slightest  seem- 
ing incongruity  ;  and  there  the  dukes  and  their  cour- 
tiers passed  their  time  in  hunting  and  moralizing,  and 
singing  sylvan  songs  with  echo  for  their  chorus. 

The  special  Duke  with  whose  happy  deposition  our 
tale  begins  had  left  behind  him,  at  the  court  of  his 
usurping  brother,  a  daughter  named  Rosalind,  who  so 
loved  and  was  so  beloved  by  her  cousin  Celia  that  to 
part  them  needlessly  was  even  beyond  the  cruelty  of 
the  man  who  had  ruined  and  banished  her  father. 
And  this  Rosalind  was  one  of  those  women  —  of  whom, 
happily  for  mankind,  there  are  always  some  in  the 
world  —  that  are  beloved  by  everybody.  She  was 
good,  she  was  witty,  she  was  beautiful ;  but  above  all, 
she  was  lovely.  Goodness,  wit,  and  beauty,  even  when 
combined,  do  not  always  win  love  from  all  men ;  and 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     129 

chiefly  they  do  not  always  win  it  from  all  women.  There 
is  a  special  gift  of  loveliness  or  lovability,  which,  strange 
to  say,  is  not  always  accompanied  by  goodness.  This 
gift  Rosalind  had,  added  to  all  her  other  qualities ;  and 
it  was  for  her  loveliness  that  she  was  loved.  She 
eclipsed  her  cousin,  the  daughter  of  the  reigning  duke  ; 
but  the  cousin  endured  and  even  rejoiced  in  that  supe- 
riority in  her  which  she  might  have  resented  in  another. 

Among  the  other  persons  who  were  or  who  should 
have  been  attached  to  his  fortunes,  the  banished  Duke 
left  behind  him  three  sons  of  Sir  Roland  de  Bois, 
one  of  his  most  faithful  adherents.  Two  of  them 
were,  it  should  seem,  too  young  to  go  with  him  into 
his  exile ;  but  the  elder,  Oliver,  was  a  selfish  churl  in  a 
gentleman's  place,  and  he  became  a  fawning  courtier  to 
the  usurper,  and  an  oppressor  of  his  youngest  brother 
(who  bore  his  father's  name,  Orlando),  robbing  him 
of  even  his  slender  birthright,  and  striving  to  crush 
his  manly  spirit  and  grind  him  down  into  a  condition 
little  above  peasanthood.  Driven  into  rebellion,  Or- 
lando at  last  one  day  quarrelled  with  his  elder  brother, 
and  took  him  by  the  throat  with  a  hand  which,  if  he 
had  clinched  it,  would  have  quieted  his  unnatural  re- 
vilings  forever.  For  Orlando  was  not  only  a  hand- 
some, well-shaped  man,  but  he  had  the  grip  of  a  prac- 
tised wrestler.  This  his  brother  knew,  and  hoped  by 
his  fondness  for  that  perilous  sport  to  rid  himself  of 
one,  the  untaught  graces  of  whose  life  affronted  him 
with  a  daily  reproach.  There  was  to  be  a  match  be- 
fore the  court  the  next  day,  and  he  gave  the  Duke's 
wrestler  (who  as  champion  challenged  all  comers)  to 
understand  that  he  would  be  glad  to  see  Orlando's 
neck  well  broken. 

The  two  princesses  were  at  the  wrestling ;  and  as 


130  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

they  saw  Orlando  offer  himself  to  contend  with  the 
victorious  champion,  who  had  already  left  three  of  his 
opponents  with  broken  bones  upon  the  ground,  they 
became  his  partisans,  and  entreated  him  not  to  ex- 
pose himself  to  defeat,  with  danger  of  maiming  or 
even  of  death.  But  he  was  in  a  mood  at  once  des- 
pairing and  determined ;  and  touched  although  he 
was  by  the  interest  which  these  fair,  high-born  ladies 
took  in  him,  he  refused  to  withdraw,  saying  in  the 
bitterness  of  his  heart,  which  was  made  more  bitter 
even  by  the  sight  of  so  much  loveliness  so  far  beyond 
his  reach,  that  if  he  were  foiled,  there  would  be  only 
one  shamed  that  was  never  gracious,  and  if  killed,  he 
should  but  leave  a  place  that  would  be  better  filled 
when  he  had  made  it  empty.  But  fortune  rained 
favors  from  the  eyes  of  one  at  least  of  these  ladies ; 
and  Rosalind's  heart  leaped  with  joy  as  she  saw  him 
throw  the  bony  prizer  of  the  Duke  speechless  to  the 
ground.  His  victory  caused  inquiry  as  to  who  he  was  ; 
and  when  the  Duke  found  that  he  was  the  son  of  his 
old  enemy,  he  flung  away  in  anger.  Another  tie  then 
quickly  bound  Rosalind  to  Orlando  ;  for  she  demurely 
said  to  herself,  and  then  spoke  it  out  to  Celia,  that  as 
her  father  had  loved  Sir  Roland  as  his  soul,  she  could 
not  but  feel  some  duty  of  deep  interest  in  his  son. 
And  so  they  both  congratulated  and  cheered  the  con- 
queror; and  Rosalind,  who  acted  always  upon  im- 
pulse, and  in  whom  a  pure  heart  played  the  part  of 
discretion,  took  a  chain  from  her  neck  and  asked  Or- 
lando to  wear  it  for  her ;  knowing  in  her  heart  that, 
according  to  the  usages  of  chivalry,  then  not  quite  for- 
gotten, this  would  make  him  her  knight,  if  he  would 
only  choose  to  think  so ;  but  that  if  he  did  not,  it 
would  be  merely  a  princely  crowning  of  his  victory. 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     131 

The  sudden  light  of  so  fair  a  fortune  dazed  Or- 
lando ;  and  he  stood  speechless  while  the  ladies 
walked  away.  But  Rosalind  had  chained  herself  to 
him,  and  at  every  lingering-  step  she  felt  the  bond 
tightening  upon  her.  Had  he  been  bold,  she  might 
have  been  startled  into  shyness ;  but  as  he  was  shame- 
faced and  speechless,  her  heart  spoke  for  him  and 
called  her  back;  and  with  a  demure  mockery  which 
was  characteristic  of  her  talk,  she  said  to  her  cousin 
Celia  that  her  pride  fell  with  her  fortunes,  and  turning 
she  asked  him  what  he  would,  and  if  he  called.  But 
he,  like  some  modest,  brave  men,  was  speechless  be- 
fore a  woman  whose  every  tone  was  sinking  into  his 
heart  as  she  showed  him  that  he  had  only  to  ask  and 
have.  Whereupon  Rosalind  began  to  compliment 
him  upon  his  wrestling  ;  and  then,  provoked  beyond 
restraint  at  her  own  emotion  and  his  reserve,  stam- 
mered out  in  her  impulsive  way  that  he  had  over- 
thrown more  than  his  enemies.  And  so  they  parted. 

Had  Rosalind  been  one  whit  less  pure  and  true, 
and  perhaps  we  should  say  less  beautiful  and  lovely, 
she  would  have  lost  some  womanly  charm  in  this 
tender  assault  upon  her  bewildered  lover — for  such 
Orlando  had  become  in  those  bright,  brief  moments. 
And  in  either  case  she  had  begun  a  perilous  game, 
and  one  likely  to  be  fatal  to  any  woman  who,  even 
with  all  Rosalind's  charms  to  load  the  dice,  was  not 
ready  to  set  the  fortunes  of  her  heart  upon  one  cast. 
She  did  not  shut  her  eyes  to  her  position ;  for  she 
was  clear-headed  as  well  as  brave ;  and  soon  after- 
ward she  confessed  her  love  to  Celia,  mocking  herself 
with  a  rueful  wit  as  she  told  it.  For  Rosalind,  with 
all  the  sweetest  and  tenderest  traits  of  woman's  na- 
ture, had  not  only  wit,  which  not  a  few  women  have, 


132  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

but  humor,  which  is  the  possession  of  very  few  women 
indeed.  And  in  this  she  differed  from  a  far-away 
cousin  of  hers  named  Beatrice,  whose  tongue  had 
a  sting  in  it  like  the  snapping-thong  of  a  carter's 
whip.  But  in  Rosalind's  wit  there  was  never  any 
sting  ;  and  the  sweetness  of  her  nature  and  her 
humor  working  together  made  her  laughing  sallies 
the  mere  overflow  of  a  gay,  impulsive  heart.  An- 
other difference  between  these  ladies  was  that  Bea- 
trice always  exercised  her  wit  upon  others,  while 
Rosalind  was  as  often  as  otherwise  witty  at  her  own 
expense. 

The  Duke,  suspicious  with  the  consciousness  of 
guilt,  and  angered  by  the  success  of  a  son  of  his  old 
enemy  over  his  retainer,  turned  upon  his  niece  and 
drove  her  from  his  court.  Celia  refused  to  part  from 
her  cousin,  and  they  left  the  palace  together  in  dis- 
guise ;  Rosalind  assuming  the  dress  and  character  of 
a  young  man,  which  she  could  the  better  do  because 
of  her  height  (for  she  was  a  stately  beauty),  her  gay- 
ety  of  heart  and  her  self-reliance.  She  felt  the  wrong 
of  her  uncle's  anger,  and  she  resented  it  with  as  much 
spirit  as  if  she  had  not  been  dependent  upon  him  al- 
most for  her  daily  bread.  Celia  too  stood  up,  but 
with  more  calmness,  for  her  cousin.  But  at  once 
Rosalind's  light  heart  rose  with  a  rebound,  and  she 
went  out  upon  her  exile  as  if  she  were  on  her  way  to 
a  merrymaking.  With  them,  for  cheer  and  for  pro- 
tection, the  princesses  took  the  Court-fool,  a  fellow 
named  Touchstone,  one  of  the  wisest  and  most  cynical 
of  his  race,  who  had  under  his  motley  coat  a  genuine 
love  of  his  old  master's  daughter. 

As  for  centuries  in  Europe  all  roads  led  to  Rome, 
so  in  the  world  and  the  time  in  which  these  charming 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     133 

people  lived,  all  roads  led  to  Arden.  And  why  not  ? 
How  should  it  be  otherwise,  since  thus  we  would  have 
them,  and  the  very  title  of  this  story  is  "As  You 
Like  It "  ?  So  Rosalind  went  straight  from  her  gruff 
uncle  to  her  father,  and,  as  it  proved,  to  her  lover. 
For  Orlando  had  found  his  brother  even  more  his  en- 
emy than  the  usurping  Duke  ;  and  warned  by  Adam, 
an  aged  and  faithful  attendant,  who  loved  him  dearly, 
they  turned  their  steps  away  from  home  together, 
and  where  should  they  too  wander  but  into  the  Forest 
of  Arden  ;  there  was  positively  no  other  place  in  the 
world  where  they  could  go. 

There  the  Duke  was  living  with  a  few  followers, 
happier  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  palace.  For  he 
had  a  clear  conscience,  a  healthy  body,  and  a  con- 
tented spirit ;  and  with  these  a  man  can  be  happy 
anywhere,  and  under  any  privation,  so  that  he  does 
not  suffer  pain,  hunger,  or  anxiety.  Among  his  friends 
was  one  Jaques,  a  gentleman  who  was  not  of  much 
use  in  killing  venison,  or  in  other  woodcraft ;  for  be- 
sides that  he  was  in  the  first  place  an  old  man,  so  old 
as  to  be  past  hunting  or  fighting,  he  was  much  more 
given  to  musing  and  to  morbid  moralizing  than  to 
more  active  employments.  They  called  him  the  mel- 
ancholy Jaques ;  but  melancholy  had  not  then  quite 
the  exclusive  meaning  of  silent  musing  sadness  that  it 
afterward  acquired  ;  and  hence  the  character  of  this 
personage  has  been  universally  misunderstood.  Then 
melancholy  conveyed  the  notion  of  what  we  some- 
times call  a  bilious  disposition,  and  was  even  used 
where  we  now  use  monomania.  Jaques  himself  de- 
scribed his  melancholy  to  Rosalind,  when  they  met  one 
day  in  the  forest ;  and  in  describing  it  he  told  her 
first  what  it  was  not.  And  of  the  kinds  of  melancholy 


134  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

that  it  was  not  were  these  :  the  courtier's  melancholy, 
the  soldier's  melancholy,  and  the  lawyer's.  Now 
courtiers,  soldiers,  and  lawyers  are  by  no  means  pecul- 
iarly inclined  to  sadness,  and  musing,  and  silence. 
On  the  contrary,  the  courtier's  melancholy,  as  Jaques 
said,  is  proud,  the  soldier's  is  ambitious,  and  the  law- 
yer's is  politic.  Hence  we  see  that  what  Jaques 
meant  by  melancholy  was  what  we  now  call  cynicism 
—  a  sullen,  scoffing,  snarling  spirit.  And  this  Jaques 
had.  He  was  simply  a  cynic,  and  a  very  bitter  one. 
And  his  cynicism  had  come  from  two  causes,  one  of 
which  wo  learn  from  himself  directly,  and  the  other 
indirectly  from  his  talk  and  from  what  we  are  told  of 
him.  He  said  himself  that  it  came  from  the  sundry 
contemplation  of  his  travels,  which  by  often  rumina- 
tion wrapped  him  in  a  most  humorous  sadness.  And 
by  humorous,  again,  he  meant  something  quite  differ- 
ent from  what  we  now  generally  understand  by  the 
same  word.  He  would  not  have  called  Falstaff 
humorous  —  at  least  not  with  regard  to  his  jests,  but 
only,  if  at  all,  because  of  his  indulging  a  peculiar 
humor  of  mind.  His  own  humorous  sadness  was  a 
sadness  of  ill-humor.  His  humor  was  cynicism  ;  and 
it  tinged  all  his  views  of  life  and  of  his  fellow-men, 
so  that  when  he  thought  over  his  travels  and  his  ex- 
perience of  the  world,  which  had  been  wide,  and  had 
extended  through  many  years,  he  took  a  gloomy  view 
of  life  and  a  low  view  of  mankind.  He  was  one  of 
those  men  who  believe  in  nothing  good,  and  who,  as 
the  reason  of  their  lack  of  faith  in  human  nature 
and  of  hope  of  human  happiness,  and  their  want  of 
charity,  tell  us  that  they  have  seen  the  world.  This 
sort  of  man  has  generally  reached  middle  age,  and  is 
likely  to  be  one  who  has  himself  lived  in  his  youth  a 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     135 

loose,  pleasure-seeking,  selfish  life.  And  such  had  been 
the  life  of  Jaques,  before  he  began  to  decline  into  the 
vale  of  years. 

One  day,  soon  after  Rosalind  with  Celia  and  Touch- 
stone had  come  to  the  forest,  Jaques  lighted  upon  the 
Fool  as  he  lay  basking  in  the  sun  and  railing  at  For- 
tune. For  Touchstone,  too,  was  a  cynic,  and  veiled 
his  sneers  under  the  form  of  such  jests  as  were  then 
tolerated  in  men  of  his  condition.  Soliloquizing, 
Touchstone  was  taking  the  saddest,  blackest  view  of 
human  life,  looking  upon  it  as  a  mere  hourly  passage 
through  growth  and  decay.  This  so  chimed  with 
Jaques's  own  humor,  that  the  gloominess  of  the  Fool 
made  him  cheerful,  and  his  lungs  began  to  crow  like 
chanticleer;  and  soon  coming  where  the  Duke  was,  he 
broke  out  into  praise  of  the  Fool  —  the  only  words  of 
commendation  that  we  know  of  his  utterance  with  re- 
gard to  any  human  creature.  He  wished  he  was  a 
Fool,  and  began  to  snarl  as  usual ;  saying  that  if  he 
had  only  free  scope  for  his  bitter  tongue,  he  would 
cleanse  the  foul  body  of  the  infected  world,  if  it  would 
only  patiently  receive  his  medicine.  Whereupon  the 
Duke,  who,  in  his  honest,  trustful,  charitable  soul  and 
cheerful  spirit,  was  as-  unlike  Jaques  as  one  man  could 
be  unlike  another,  and  who,  alluding  to  his  disposi- 
tion to  carp  and  sneer,  had  before  said  of  him  that  he 
was  "  compact  of  jars,"  broke  out  upon  him  with  re- 
proaches, and  told  him  some  plain  truth :  that  his  own 
life  had  been  so  sinful  that  he  had  no  right  to  censure 
others ;  that  he  had  been  a  libertine,  sensual  and 
brutish ;  and  that  what  he  called  his  melancholy  and 
his  medicine  was  the  mere  disgorging  upon  others  of 
the  foulness  with  which  his  own  mind  had  been  in- 
fected. 


136  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

In  brief,  Jaques  was  Falstaff  without  his  fat  and 
his  humor. 

While  the  Duke  and  Jaques  were  talking  thus,  as 
they  were  about  to  sit  down  to  meat  Orlando  rushed 
in,  sword  in  hand,  and  demanded  food,  upon  pain  of 
death  to  any  that  refused.  Whereupon  Jaques,  who 
at  first  sneered  at  him,  said,  alluding  to  his  aged  in- 
ability to  fight,  "  An  you  will  not  be  answered  with 
reason,  I  must  die."  But  when  Orlando  told  the 
Duke  that  poor  Adam,  his  old  attendant,  was  fainting 
with  hunger  and  weariness,  he  was  made  welcome,  and 
sent  out  to  bring  in  his  faithful  servant.  When  he 
had  gone  the  Duke  turned  to  Jaques,  and  told  him  to 
mark  that  others  were  unhappy,  and  played  more  woe- 
ful parts  than  theirs.  This  hint  was  enough  to  start 
Jaques  off  upon  a  more  than  usually  characteristic  out- 
pouring of  his  cynicism.  His  reply  was  that  all  the 
world  was  only  a  stage,  and  that  the  men  and  women 
in  it  were  merely  players.  Their  birth  and  death  he 
called  mere  entrance  and  mere  exit.  Then,  stirred  up 
by  the  welcome,  degrading  thought,  he  gave  his  com- 
panions a  specimen  of  a  cynic's  table  talk,  and  as  he 
ate  garnished  the  feast,  bit  by  bit,  with  a  view  of  life 
in  all  its  stages,  describing  the  infant,  the  schoolboy, 
the  young  lover,  the  manly  soldier  (for  then  most 
gentlemen  in  their  prime  were  soldiers),  the  justice, 
and  the  old  man,  each  in  scoffing  and  disparaging 
terms.  In  fact  he  seized  the  occasion  to  sneer  at  the 
representatives  of  the  whole  human  race.1 

1  This  view  of  Jaques's  character,  and  of  the  spirit  and  meaning  of 
his  censures,  was  first  set  forth  in  Shakespeare's  Scholar  (New  York, 
1854),  a  book  well  known  in  Germany.  This  is  mentioned  because  the 
same  appreciation  has  been  proclaimed  since  that  time  (as  I  find  by  refer- 
ence, having  read  only  the  English  version  of  the  work)  by  one  of  those 
German  critics  whom  some  people,  themselves  generally  included,  regard 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     137 

Directly  after  their  arrival  in  Arden  Rosalind  and 
Celia  bought  a  sheepcote  and  a  flock,  and  engaged  the 
services  of  a  shepherd  named  Corin.  Upon  this  Corin, 
and  upon  another  clown  in  the  forest,  did  Touchstone 
vent  his  cynicism,  using  his  licensed  tongue  as  a  dou- 
ble-edged sword,  to  slash  the  rustic  folk  among  whom 
he  was,  and  the  courtiers  whose  society  he  had  left ; 
in  which  attacks  the  courtiers  got  the  worst  of  it,  be- 
cause Touchstone  knew  them  the  better,  and  because 
their  artificial  life  laid  them  the  more  open  to  attack. 
Among  the  Court-fools  of  the  day  Touchstone  was 
distinguished  by  the  dryness  and  causticity  of  his  wit. 
No  softness  of  manner  won  love  for  him,  no  playful- 
ness of  disposition  gavo  any  charm  to  his  fooling,  no 
sentiment  tempered  the  keen  blast  of  his  wit,  which 
blew  steadily  in  all  places  and  in  all  companies.  He 
was  a  purely  intellectual  jester ;  was  self-possessed,  and 

as  having  taught  readers  of  English  blood  and  speech  how  to  appreciate 
Shakespeare.  He  has  done  so  only  with  this  remark  :  "  The  melancholy 
which  this  man  [Jaques]  imbibes  from  every  occasion  has  always  seemed 
to  most  readers,  and  especially  to  most  actors,  as  mild,  human,  and 
attractive,  and  they  represent  it  as  such;  but  it  is  rooted,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  a  bitterness  and  ill  humor,"  etc.  (Shakespeare.  G.  G.  Gervinus. 
Leipsic.  1862)  This  "always"  was  true  until  four  years  before  the 
work  of  Gervinus  was  published.  No  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays  has 
suffered  more  from  the  preparers  of  the  acting  copies  than  this;  no  one  of 
Shakespeare's  characters  is  so  misrepresented  on  the  stage  as  Jaques. 
On  the  stage,  for  instance,  it  is  Jaqnes  who  pities  the  poor  wounded  stag; 
but  Shakespeare's  Jaques  does  no  such  thing;  that  passage  belongs  to  one 
of  the  banished  Duke's  attendant  lords.  The  real  Jaques  only  makes  the 
poor  brute's  sufferings  the  occasion  of  sneers  at  mankind.  The  effect  of 
the  stage  Jaques  has  been  to  unsettle  even  the  best  judgments  in  regard  to 
the  character.  I  am  surprised  to  find  such  a  sound  and  thoughtful  Shake- 
spearean critic  as  Mr.  Hudson  still  infected  by  it  (Shakespeare:  his  Life, 
Art,  and  Characters,  1872);  and  even  the  author  of  Friends  in  Council 
is  betrayed  into  such  a  misapprehension  as  to  say  (in  the  Essay  on  Despair) 
that  Jaques's  melancholy  was  "  innate."  Shakespeare  makes  Jaques  him- 
self tell  us  that  his  melancholy  was  "compounded"  and  "extracted," 
the  fruit  of  his  long  observation  of  mankind,  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
world. 


138  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

stood  upon  his  Fool  dignity ;  and  was  not  to  be  led  off 
into  playful  pranks  on  the  one  side  or  the  weakness  of 
sentiment  on  the  other.  He  was  one  of  your  self- 
conscious  men  of  the  world  who  look  at  everything  as 
a  disinterested  bystander ;  only  with  a  motley  dress  he 
had  a  motley  speech,  such  as  was  permitted  to  Court- 
fools.  Hence  he  and  Jaques  were  so  accordant. 

While  Touchstone  was  bewildering  Corin  with  scoffs 
at  his  shepherd's  life  that  were  over-subtle  for  his  rus- 
tic understanding,  Rosalind  came  upon  them  reading 
some  verses  which  she  had  found  stuck  up  on  a  tree, 
as  was  the  fashion,  it  would  seem,  in  the  Forest  of 
Arden.  The  verses  were  strangely  enough  in  praise 
of  a  woman  of  her  own  name.  She  read  them  aloud ; 
whereupon  Touchstone  began  to  sneer  at  them,  and 
offered  to  rhyme  so  eight  years  together,  and  in  fact 
began  the  eight  years  immediately,  after  no  very  de- 
cent fashion,  when  Celia  came  up,  also  reading  some 
verses,  and  they  too  deified  the  name  of  Rosalind  ;  for 
Orlando  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  hunt  and  to  write 
love  verses.  Rosalind  let  Celia  read  her  lines,  and 
then  began  to  ridicule  them  in  merry  mood ;  for  not- 
withstanding her  position,  her  heart  was  ever  gay,  and 
she  took  her  exile  almost  as  a  welcome  holiday  from  the 
formalities  of  court  life,  and  enjoyed  it  as  if  it  were 
what  saucy  boys,  such  as  she  pretended  to  be  now,  call 
a  lark.  You  may  suppose  that  she  suspected  who  had 
written  these  verses.  Possibly  she  might  have  done 
so  if  she  were  not  in  the  Forest  of  Arden  ;  but  she 
did  not.  Remember  that  she  did  not  know  that  Or- 
lando was  in  the  forest,  and  what  was  yet  more  impor- 
tant to  her,  she  did  not  know  that  he  loved  her.  He 
had  received  all  her  sweet  tokens  of  warm  interest  at 
the  wrestling-ground  like  a  lifeless  block ;  and  there 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     139 

she  had  left  him  standing  in  dazed  silence.  And  that 
she  did  not  suspect  any  inclination  on  his  part  toward 
her,  she  showed  on  the  first  day  of  her  arrival  in  Ar- 
den,  when  she  overheard  a  young  shepherd  named 
Silvius  confessing  his  love  for  a  shepherdess,  Phebe, 
who  scorned  him  ;  and  when  he  went  away  she  con- 
fessed that  in  searching  his  wound  she  had  found  her 
own,  and  broke  out :  — 

Jove !  Jove  !  this  shepherd's  passion 
Is  much  upon  my  fashion. 

And  this  knowledge  that  she  had  given  her  love 
unasked  to  a  man  who  had  not  even  shown  the  slight- 
est interest  in  her  was  ever  afterward  an  abiding 
consciousness  in  her  heart  and  motive  in  her  con- 
duct. Now  Celia  saw  at  once  how  matters  were  and 
began  to  tease  her  tall  cousin,  dropping  hints  about 
the  chain,  and  pretending  that  Rosalind  must  know 
who  was  the  verse-writer,  and  saying  it  was  wonderful 
how  people  who  had  been  separated  could  meet,  until 
at  last  Rosalind  exclaimed,  "  Good,  my  complexion ! " 
— that  is,  in  the  phrase  of  the  day,  My  good  girl,  re- 
member what  I  really  am  —  what  is  my  nature  — 
"  dost  thou  think,  though  I  am  caparison'd  like  a  man, 
I  have  a  doublet  and  hose  in  my  disposition  ?  "  And 
she  heaped  questions  upon  Celia  with  most  petitionary 
vehemence,  until  her  cousin  told  her  plainly  that  it 
was  Orlando,  adding  —  in  her  ignorance  of  what  was 
in  store  for  herself  —  that  he  had  tripped  up  the 
wrestler's  heels  and  Rosalind's  heart  both  in  an  in- 
stant. When  she  saw  that  Celia  was  in  earnest  about 
Orlando's  being  in  Arden,  Rosalind's  first  thought  was 
that  she  was  there  before  her  lover  in  man's  apparel, 
and  what  she  should  do  with  her  doublet  and  hose. 
Then  she  poured  out  questions  more  rapidly  than  be- 


140  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

fore,  asking  what  he  was  doing,  what  he  said,  what  he 
came  there  for,  where  he  dwelt,  and  so  forth  and  so 
on ;  dropping  slyly  in  among  her  inquiries,  as  if  it 
were  merely  one  of  the  heap,  the  most  important  of 
them  all,  "  Did  he  ask  for  me  ?  " 

While  Rosalind  and  Celia  were  talking  of  this 
strange  event,  who  should  enter  but  Orlando  himself, 
and  Jaques  with  him !  The  seeming  page  and  shep- 
herdess slipped  aside  and  listened  ;  and  in  spite  of  the 
old  saw  that  listeners  hear  no  good  of  themselves,  there 
Rosalind  had  the  joy  of  hearing  Orlando  confess  his 
love  and  exult  in  it  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  jeers  of 
Jaques  against  the  tender  passion,  and  his  scoffs  at 
this  particular  manifestation  of  it.  Jaques  and  Or- 
lando soon  parted  —  for  they  were  ill-sorted  company 
—  and  then  Rosalind,  reassured  by  what  sho  had 
heard  Orlando  say,  recovered  her  spirits,  and,  confi- 
dent in  her  disguise,  determined  to  speak  to  Orlando 
like  a  saucy  lackey,  and  "  chaff "  him.  And  she 
began  very  boldly,  "Do  you  hear,  forester?"  and 
when  he  answered  she  asked,  "  What  is  't  o'clock  ? " 
But  when  Orlando,  giving  her  as  good  as  she  sent, 
told  her  there  was  no  clock  in  the  forest,  she  showed 
at  onco  what  was  uppermost  in  her  heart  by  saying, 
"  Then  there  's  no  true  lover  in  the  forest ; "  adding  that 
if  there  were  he  would  mark  the  time  by  sighing  every 
minute,  and  groaning  every  hour  ;  for  her  merry  spirit, 
now  that  she  had  heard  him  say  that  he  loved  her, 
mocked  the  very  passion  that  she  shared.  And  then 
she  launched  forth  into  sallies  of  wit  which  might  well 
have  become  a  saucy  young  fellow.  But  any  direct 
question  to  her  brought  her  straight  back  to  her 
woman's  consciousness.  For  when  Orlando  asked  her 
where  she  lived,  she  answered,  "With  this  shep- 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     141 

herdess,  my  sister,  here  in  the  skirts  of  the  forest,  like 
fringe  upon  a  petticoat ; "  which  most  unmanlike  com- 
parison showed  well  enough  that  verily  there  was  no 
doublet  and  hose  in  her  disposition. 

She  led  him  soon  to  talk  upon  the  subject  most 
pleasant  to  her  ears  by  making  sport  of  the  man  that 
hung  odes  upon  hawthorns  and  elegies  upon  brambles, 
all  deifying  the  name  of  Rosalind ;  and  to  this  poor 
love-shaken  fellow  she  offered  to  give  some  good  coun- 
sel. Orlando  confessed  of  course  that  he  was  the 
man  ;  whereupon  more  scoffing :  She  believed  none  of 
it ;  he  was  no  lover  ;  he  had  not  the  marks  upon  him ; 
and  if  he  were  he  could  not  make  her  believe  so.  But 
then,  dropping  out  of  her  badinage,  Was  he  indeed 
the  man  that  wrote  the  verses  ?  and  with  a  shy  tender- 
ness of  tone  and  her  yearning  consciousness  that  she 
had  loved  him  before  he  had  asked  her,  Was  he  really 
in  love  as  much  as  his  rhymes  spoke  ?  Of  course  he 
protested ;  and  then  again  her  spirit  rebounded,  and 
she  shot  off  on  a  tirade  against  love,  winding  up  with 
an  offer  to  cure  him  of  what  she  called  his  madness,  if 
he  would  come  and  make  love  to  her,  a  saucy  lad,  in 
the  person  of  that  Rosalind  he  made  so  much  of.  Sur- 
prised perhaps,  but  unhesitating,  he  agreed  to  do  so  — 
for  what  pleasanter  pastime  could  there  be  in  Arden  ? 
and  besides,  this  saucy  young  chap  had  a  certain  look 
that  reminded  him  of  Rosalind,  so  that  at  first  he 
thought  that  he  was  Rosalind's  younger  brother  — 
and  with  this  agreement  they  parted. 

And  now  what  joy  to  Rosalind  !  Day  after  day 
did  Orlando  follow  the  rank  of  osiers  by  the  murmur- 
ing stream  which  led  to  the  cottage  that  hung  in  the 
skirts  of  the  forest  like  fringe  upon  a  petticoat ;  and 
there  he  found  the  pretty  lad  always  waiting  for  him, 


142  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

impatient  for  his  coming,  and  yet  concealing  her 
woman's  longing  with  her  assumed  boyish  sauciness. 
There,  with  Celia  by,  she  teased  him,  alternately  allur- 
ing him  to  make  love  to  her  as  if  she  were  indeed  his 
very  Rosalind,  and  flouting  him  as  if  she  were  the 
merry  lad  who  had  promised  to  cure  him  of  his  fond- 
ness. She  had  even  gone  so  far  in  her  vicarious  per- 
formance of  the  duties  pertaining  to  Rosalind  as  to 
bring  it  about  that  he  should  kiss  her,  and  had  attained 
to  very  subtle  discrimination  as  to  the  quality  of  his 
kisses ;  a  feat  less  strange  and  difficult  then  than  it 
would  be  now ;  for  then,  all  men,  even  if  not  of  the  same 
family,  did  occasionally  kiss  each  other.  What  golden 
times  were  those  when  every  day  brought  an  ever  fresh 
delight ;  and  what  sweet  revenge  for  the  giving  of  her 
love  unasked,  to  hear  him  declare  each  day  his  love  un- 
changeable for  the  Rosalind  whom  he  thought  far  away, 
and  removed  from  him  as  much  by  distance  as  by  cir- 
cumstance !  And  what  a  conscious  wealth  of  happi- 
ness in  the  knowledge  that  at  any  moment  she  could 
raise  him  to  the  highest  heaven  of  delight  by  simply 
telling  him  that  she  was  Rosalind  indeed !  Was  she 
never  tempted  to  the  revelation?  Yes;  a  hundred 
times  it  trembled  upon  her  lips,  and  we  may  be  sure 
would  have  been  uttered,  in  spite  of  her  doublet  and 
hose,  were  it  not  that  she  was  in  the  Forest  of  Arden. 
And  he,  seeing  her  daily  and  talking  with  her,  looking 
into  her  eyes,  and  hearing  the  voice  that  so  moved  him 
on  the  day  of  his  victory  over  the  wrestler  —  did  he 
not  divine  who  this  bright,  handsome  lad  really  was  ? 
It  should  seem  that  he  must  have  done  so.  But  yet 
we  must  remember  that  he  had  seen  both  Rosalind  and 
Celia  in  their  own  persons  but  once  ;  that  then  Rosa- 
lind was  in  her  woman's  weeds,  which  added  to  her 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     143 

height,  and  made  her  seem  much  larger  than  this  slip 
of  a  lad,  who  was  witty  and  saucy,  while  the  Rosalind 
that  he  remembered  was  dignified  and  gentle,  or  at 
most  tender.  And  if,  notwithstanding  all  this,  we 
must  believe  that  a  lover's  eye  would  have  penetrated 
the  disguise,  we  must  remember  that  the  lover  had 
upon  him  the  enchantment  of  the  Forest  of  Arden. 
But,  hardest  point  of  all,  Celia,  who  saw  all  this  real 
love-making  that  pretended  to  be  sham  —  she  who  had 
no  personal  interest  in  the  deceit,  and  who  was  dying 
to  see  her  cousin  really  happy  —  would  she  not  have 
told  Orlando  his  good  fortune  ?  Yes,  verily ;  mortal 
woman  could  not  have  kept  that  secret  had  not  she 
too  been  under  the  spell  constantly  murmured  by  the 
leaves  of  the  Forest  of  Arden. 

So  the  secret  was  kept,  and  Rosalind  fell  every  day 
a  fathom  deeper  in  her  love  ;  fretting  if  Orlando  did 
not  keep  tryst  to  the  minute,  and  relieving  her  pretty 
anger  by  abusing  him  to  Celia ;  who,  demure  little 
puss  as  she  was,  agreed  that  he  was  a  faithless  fellow, 
a  very  Judas  Iscariot  among  lovers,  and  then  was 
snapped  np  and  soundly  rated  for  her  complaisance, 
as  indeed  the  sly  girl  knew  and  hoped  would  happen. 

One  day  Jaques  met  Rosalind  and  Celia,  and,  capti- 
vated with  the  wit  of  the  seeming  page,  he  begged  his 
better  acquaintance.  But  Rosalind  had  heard  what 
Jaques  was,  and  had  little  liking  for  him ;  and  more- 
over she  had  matters  on  hand  more  to  her  mind  ;  for 
she  was  expecting  Orlando,  who,  after  that  provoking 
fashion  of  men,  would  make  her  wait  while  he  was  oc- 
cupied in  his  business  of  hunting  or  of  attending  on  the 
Duke.  And,  besides,  we  must  remember  that  although 
the  affair  was  very  much  in  earnest  with  her,  with  him 
it  was  mere  pastime  and  make-believe.  So  Rosalind 


144  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

turned  off  Jaques  by  breaking  jests  upon  him  as  a 
traveller.  While  this  was  going  on  Orlando  came  up 
and  said,  "  Good  day  and  happiness,  dear  Rosalind  ;  " 
whereupon  the  surly  Jaques,  shrinking  from  any  such 
gallant  and  well-framed  speeches,  went  hastily  away. 
But  did  Rosalind  turn  at  once  to  Orlando  as  he  stood 
there  expectant  of  her  greeting  ?  Not  she.  He  was 
behindhand,  and  must  be  punished ;  and  so  she  pre- 
tended not  to  see  himr  and  keeping  her  eyes  upon 
Jaques  as  he  walked  off  she  called  after  him,  "  Fare- 
well, monsieur  traveller :  Look  you  lisp  and  wear 
strange  suits;  disable  all  the  benefits  of  your  own 
country  ;  be  out  of  love  with  your  nativity,  and  almost 
chide  God  for  making  you  that  countenance  you  are, 
or  I  will  scarce  think  you  have  swam  in  a  gondola." 
Then  as  Jaques  disappeared  in  the  winding  forest 
path,  she  turned  on  her  lover,  and,  seeming  to  discover 
him,  broke  forth,  "  Why,  how  now,  Orlando,  where 
have  you  been  all  this  while  ?  "  and  fell  to  teasing  him 
after  her  bright,  gay,  pretty  fashion.  She  was  more 
than  usually  keen  ;  but  after  she  had  relieved  herself 
a  little  in  this  way  she  began  to  hunger  again  for  as- 
surances of  his  love,  and  asked  him  —  of  course  as 
Ganymede  (for  that  was  her  boy  name),  and  only  in 
her  assumed  character  of  Rosalind  —  to  woo  her,  as- 
suring him  that  she  was  in  a  coming-on  mood  that  day, 
and  might  consent. 

At  last  she  thought  that  it  would  be  great  sport  and 
greater  happiness  to  see  how  the  marriage  service 
would  sound  between  her  and  Orlando.  She  soon 
contrived  to  bring  about  the  proper  situation.  Or- 
lando consented,  and  Celia  was  to  be  the  priest.  But 
Rosalind,  in  her  mingled  gayety  and  earnestness,  took 
the  words  out  of  her  sister's  mouth,  tutored  Orlando, 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     145 

and  spoke  her  own  part  without  tutoring.  Then,  still 
in  her  merry  mood,  but  with  the  shadow  of  her  great 
anxiety  beginning  to  fall  upon  her  heart,  she  asked 
him  to  tell  her  how  long  he  would  have  his  Rosalind 
after  he  had  possessed  her;  nor  when  he  answered, 
lover-like,  "  Forever  and  a  day,"  could  his  ardor 
check  the  chill  that  fled  along  her  veins,  and  she  an- 
swered, "  Say  a  day  without  the  ever.  No,  no, 
Orlando  ;  men  are  April  when  they  woo,  December 
when  they  wed ;  maids  are  May  when  they  are  maids, 
but  the  sky  changes  when  they  are  wives."  But  sud- 
denly, remembering  that  this  was  rather  playing  her 
own  part,  Rosalind,  than  the  part  she  played,  a  saucy 
page  playing  Rosalind,  or  rather,  perhaps,  caught  by 
the  ever  quick  returning  flood  of  her  own  gayety,  she 
cast  loose  from  sentiment  and  began  in  swift  phrases  a 
satire  on  her  sex  :  u  I  will  be  more  jealous  of  thee  than 
a  Barbary  cock-pigeon  over  his  hen ;  more  clamorous 
than  a  parrot  against  rain ;  more  new-fangled  than 
an  ape ;  more  giddy  in  my  desires  than  a  monkey ; 
I  will  weep  for  nothing,  like  Diana  in  the  fountain," 
and  so  on,  rattling  down  her  little  jests  upon  him  as 
thick  as  hail  that  comes  from  a  summer  cloud  while 
half  the  heavens  are  bright,  half  gloomy.  But  the 
sky  was  soon  all  clear,  and  she  was  again  the  light- 
hearted  Rosalind.  Again,  —  until  he  said  that  he  must 
leave  her  for  two  hours ;  and  then,  demurely  seeming 
to  assume  a  forlornness  that  she  really  felt,  she  said, 
"  Alas !  clear  love,  I  cannot  lack  thee  two  hours." 
But  Orlando  had  to  go  to  attend  the  Duke  at  dinner ; 
yet  he  promised  to  return  at  two  o'clock  ;  for  then 
dukes  dined,  in  castles  as  well  as  in  forests,  at  mid- 
day. Then  she  took  the  airs  of  a  woman  who  pre- 
tends to  feel  that  she  is  neglected,  and  talked  of 
10 


146  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

dying ;  and  then  again  remembering  how  she  had 
often  waited  for  him,  broke  out  in  seeming  jest,  but  in 
real  earnest,  with  a  denunciation  of  him  as  a  break- 
promise  if  he  were  one  minute  behind  his  hour.  And 
when  he  had  gone,  and  Celia  threatened  her  with  dis- 
covery because  of  the  scandalous  way  in  which  she  had 
misused  her  sex,  she  pleaded  that  she  was  out  of  her 
depth  in  love,  and  confessing  that  she  could  not  be 
out  of  sight  of  Orlando,  went  to  find  a  shady  nook 
where  she  might  think  of  him  and  of  her  love  for 
him  until  he  came  back. 

Again,  however,  Orlando  failed  to  show  an  ardent 
lover's  punctuality  ;  but  this  time  with  new  reason. 
While  Rosalind  was  trying  to  divert  herself  with  the 
mooning  Silvias,  who  had  brought  her  a  love  letter 
from  his  own  mistress,  who  had  been  captivated  by 
the  pretty  Ganymede,  a  man  entered  and  asked  the 
way  to  her  sheepcote.  At  once,  however,  he  recog- 
nized her  and  Celia  by  a  description  he  had  heard  of 
them,  and  he  told  them  a  strange  story :  How  Orlando 
had  found  a  man  sleeping  in  the  forest  with  a  green 
and  gilded  snake  about  his  neck,  and  a  hungry  lioness 
watching  him,  ready  to  spring  when  he  should  move  ; 
how  the  snake,  seeing  Orlando,  slipped  away,  who 
thereupon  had  recognized  his  cruel  elder  brother  (for 
he  too,  having  been  driven  out  by  the  usurper,  had 
come  to  this  marvellous  Forest  of  Arden),  and  turned 
away  twice  to  leave  him  to  the  fate  that  he  deserved, 
but  yielding  to  that  kindness  which  is  ever  nobler  than 
revenge,  turned  back  and  fought  the  lioness  and  slew 
her  ;  when,  added  the  teller  of  the  story,  with  self- 
revealing  forgetfulness,  "  from  miserable  slumber  I 
awoke."  He  had  a  bloody  napkin  in  his  hand,  which 
Orlando  had  bid  him  take  to  the  youth  he  called  his 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     147 

Rosalind  to  plead  his  apology  for  failing  to  keep  his 
appointment.  Then  Rosalind  swooned  away  —  fainted 
in  dead  earnest ;  for  110  Orlando  was  by  to  see  her 
make  believe  to  be  herself.  But  hardly  had  she  re- 
covered when  she  resumed  her  part,  and  craftily  called 
Orlando's  brother's  attention  to  her  admirable  coun- 
terfeiting and  begged  him  to  report  its  excellence  to 
Orlando  himself.  And  then  she  let  off,  even  in  her 
wan  weakness,  a  joke  the  kind  of  which  was  quite 
characteristic  of  her  and  peculiar  to  her  situation. 
For  when  Orlando's  brother  told  her  to  counterfeit  to 
be  a  man  she  answered,  "  So  I  do ;  but  i'  faith  I 
should  have  been  a  woman  by  right."  This  bit  of 
fun  was  purely  for  her  own  comfort  and  solace  ;  for 
the  point  of  it  could  not  be  seen  by  him  to  whom  it 
was  addressed.  So  when,  some  days  before,  the  Duke 
had  met  her  in  the  forest  and  questioned  her,  and 
asked  her  of  what  parentage  she  was,  she  had  an- 
swered, u  Of  as  good  as  he  ;  "  whereupon  he  laughed 
and  let  her  go.  He,  however,  had  laughed  only  at  the 
pertness  of  the  pretty  boy ;  but  what  delight  it  must 
have  given  this  she  sauce-box  to  make  that  answer  to 
her  own  father ! 

Rosalind,  however,  with  all  her  love  of  fun  and  her 
delight  in  cross  purposes,  had  ever  an  eye  to  the  honor 
as  well  as  to  the  happiness  of  her  real  self ;  and  now 
she  saw  that  matters  had  gone  so  far  that  they  must 
be  brought  to  a  fitting  conclusion.  As  if  to  help  her 
to  the  end  that  she  desired,  Orlando's  brother  and 
Celia  had  fallen  into  such  furious  fondness  for  each 
other  that  they  must  be  married  immediately.  At  this, 
Orlando  was  well  pleased  ;  but  it  caused  him  to  express 
his  grief  that  his  own  longing  for  his  Rosalind  could 
not  be  satisfied.  Whereupon  master  Ganymede  told 


148  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

him  an  enormous  fib :  that  he  had  learned  the  black 
art  of  a  magician,  and  that  by  means  of  potent  charms 
he  could  set  his  Rosalind  before  him,  and  he  might 
marry  her  if  he  would.  (The  sly  dog  said  nothing 
upon  the  important  question  whether  the  real  princess 
would  be  willing  to  be  married.)  And  then  came  up 
Silvius  and  Phebe  ;  and  Rosalind  led  the  whole  party 
into  a  game  of  cross-purposes  about  their  loves  and 
their  marriage,  taking  part  herself,  and  bringing  the 
farce  to  an  end  by  promising  them  all  their  satisfac- 
tion on  the  morrow. 

Orlando  was  so  well  content  with  this  promise  that 
it  might  seem  to  some  that  he  now  suspected,  or  was 
even  sure,  of  the  identity  of  Ganymede  and  Rosalind. 
And  one  solemn  teller  of  the  tale,  who  treats  its  light 
surface  play  of  wit  and  joy  with  characteristic  effort 
at  profundity,1  says  that  Orlando's  brother  Oliver  saw 
through  her  disguise  at  the  fainting  scene  and  told  his 
discovery  to  Orlando,  who  thereafter  knew  with  whom 
he  had  to  do.  But  this  is  mere  profound  evolution  of 
moral  probabilities  which  have  no  place  in  the  Forest 
of  Arden,  and  shows  strange  ignorance  of  the  facts  of 
the  true  story.  For  the  next  morning,  the  Duke  and 
Orlando  meeting,  the  Duke  asked  Orlando  if  he  be- 
lieved that  the  boy  could  do  all  that  he  had  promised ; 
and  the  lover  answered  that  he  alternately  doubted 
and  believed,  adding  a  comparison  that  has  become  a 
sententious  expression  of  that  condition  of  mind  :  "  As 
those  that  fear  they  hope  and  know  they  fear."  And 
again,  when  afterward  the  Duke  remarked  some  like- 
ness between  Ganymede  and  his  daughter,  Orlando 
agreed  to  the  likeness,  adding,  however,  "But,  my 
good  lord,  this  boy  is  forest  born."  Their  doubts, 

1  Gerviuus,  in  the  book  before  mentioned. 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN.     149 

however,  were  soon  resolved ;  for  while  Touchstone, 
who  had  come  in  with  a  country  wench  whom  his 
courtly  wit  had  captivated,  was  explaining'  to  Jaques 
the  virtues  of  a  lie  seven  times  removed,  the  very  God 
of  Marriage,  great  Hymen  himself  (who  lived  with  the 
lionesses  and  the  snakes  and  the  English  hedge-priests 
in  the  Forest  of  Arden),  entered,  leading  the  very, 
very  Rosalind,  decked  in  woman's  garments  (for  there 
were  trees  that  bore  those  mysterious  although  neces- 
sary articles  in  the  Forest  of  Arden)  ;  and  there  was 
a  great  scene  of  recognition  ;  and  the  Duke  gave  his 
daughter  to  Orlando ;  and  they  all  coupled  just  as  you 
like  it ;  and  Rosalind,  after  teasing  them  with  her  wit 
and  enjoying  their  bewilderment,  said :  — 

Whiles  a  wedlock  hymn  we  sing, 
Feed  yourselves  with  questioning; 
That  reason  wonder  may  diminish 
How  thus  we  met,  and  these  things  finish. 

Rosalind's  woodland  escapade  was  over;  and  al- 
though she  had  enjoyed  it  to  the  full,  the  merry  girl 
was  well  content.  For  her  sallies  of  wit  were  but  the 
bright  bubbles  that  floated  from  the  rapids  and  shal- 
lows of  her  lighter  moods  over  the  deep-channelled 
flow  of  her  really  sober  nature.  She  had  been  sadly 
in  earnest  from  the  time  when  her  heart  took  the  part 
of  a  better  wrestler  than  she,  and  he  overthrew  more 
than  his  enemies. 

But  the  wondrous  tale  of  the  wondrous  Forest  of 
Arden  is  not  quite  finished.  To  them  all,  as  they  stood 
there  ready  to  worship  Hymen,  there  entered  Jaques 
de  Bois,  the  second  son  of  old  Sir  Roland,  who  told 
them  that  as  Frederick,  the  usurping  Duke,  was  on 
his  way  with  a  mighty  power  to  take  his  brother  and 
his  followers  and  put  them  to  the  sword,  he  was  met 
by  an  old  religious  man,  who  with  few  words  converted 


150  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

him  both  from  his  purpose  and  from  the  world  —  such 
power  had  hermits  in  that  marvellous  Forest  of  Arden 
—  and  that  he  himself  had  become  a  hermit,  bequeath- 
ing his  crown  to  his  banished  brother. 

Amid  all  this  joy,  did  the  moralizing  Jaques  find 
any  cause  for  his  rejoicing  ?  No ;  he  was  too  set  in  the 
ways  of  his  peculiar  melancholy.  The  sight  of  so 
much  real  happiness  was  more  than  he  could  bear; 
and  he  too  withdrew  to  hide  his  chagrin  in  a  hermit's 
cell.  The  pleasure  of  others  filled  his  breast  with  bile 
and  envy ;  and,  with  a  few  civil  words  to  the  gentle- 
folks and  a  snarl  at  his  fellow  cynic  Touchstone  by 
way  of  wedding  benison,  he  disappeared,  leaving  the 
honest  hearts  to  their  well  won  happiness. 


THE  BACON-SPIAKESPEARE  CRAZE. 


WOULD  to  heaven  there  were  unquestionable  evi- 
dence that  Bacon  did  write  the  plays  contained  in 
the  famous  folio  volume  published  at  London  in  1623 ! 
Would  that,  as  there  is  now  a  consensus  of  critical 
opinion  that  the  lady  of  the  last  century  who  decided 
that  it  was  Ben  Jonson  who  "  wrote  Shikspur "  was 
wrong  (although  even  that,  it  would  seem,  is  not  sure 
beyond  a  doubt),  it  might  be  made  as  clear  as  the  sun 
in  the  heavens  that  her  rival  female  critics  of  our  own 
day  are  right  in  proclaiming  Francis  Bacon  the  man  ! 
True,  this  decision,  like  the  other,  affects  in  no  way 
the  value  or  the  interest  of  the  plays.  It  neither  les- 
sens nor  enlarges  their  significance  as  regards  the  ma- 
terial, the  mental,  or  the  moral  condition  of  the  Eng- 
lish people  at  the  time  when  they  were  produced.  For 
the  statesman-philosopher  and  the  player-poet  were 
strictly  contemporaries,  and  lived  at  the  same  time  in 
the  same  city.  The  question  (if  it  were  a  question) 
is  not  at  all  akin  to  that,  for  example,  which  has  been 
so  long  discussed,  and  which  is  not  yet  decided,  as  to 
the  authorship  of  the  "  Iliad  "  and  the  "  Odyssey."  For 
that  is  not  a  mere  effort  of  curiosity  to  find  out  whether 
those  poems  were  produced  by  a  blind  ballad-singer 
who  spelled  his  name  H  o  m  e  r,  or  by  an  open-eyed 
epic  poet  of  some  other  name,  but  a  question  as  to  the 
period  of  the  production  of  the  poems,  as  to  their  pur- 


152  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

pose,  as  to  the  condition  of  the  society  in  which  they 
were  produced,  as  to  the  intellectual  record  embodied 
in  their  language,  and  as  to  the  historical  value  of  the 
incidents  which  they  profess  to  record.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion which  touches  the  origin,  the  character,  and  the 
development  of  the  most  remarkable  people  and  the 
brightest,  richest,  and  most  influential  civilization  of 
antiquity.  But  whether  "  Hamlet,"  "  King  Lear,"  and 
"  Othello  "  were  written  by  Francis  Bacon  or  by  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare,  or  by  John  Smith,  so  they  were 
written  by  an  Englishman,  in  London,  between  the 
years  1590  and  1610,  affects  in  no  way  their  literary 
importance  or  interest,  their  ethnological  or  their  so- 
cial significance,  their  value  as  objects  of  literary  art, 
or  their  power  as  a  civilizing,  elevating  influence  upon 
the  world.  The  question  (if  it  were  a  question)  is 
merely  a  large  variety  of  that  small  sort  of  literary 
puzzles  which  interest  pene-literary  people,  of  the  sort 
who  are  disturbed  to  the  profoundest  shallows  of  their 
minds  by  uncertainty  as  to  who  is  the  author  of  that 
foolish  saying,  "  Consistency,  thou  art  a  jewel,"  and 
who  search  volumes  of  Familiar  Quotations  and  vex 
other  folk  with  letters  there-anent,  in  hopes  to  allay 
the  agitation  of  their  souls.1 

For  one,  I  avow  myself  wholly  indifferent  upon  this 
subject.  What  is  Shakespeare  to  me,  or  what  am  I 
to  Bacon  ?  They  are  no  more.  Even  what  they  were 
when  they  lived  concerned  only  themselves  and  their 
personal  friends.  What  they  did  is  of  the  greatest 
moment  to  the  world  for  all  time  ;  but  it  would  be  of 

1  Or  who  spring  to  critical  life  in  the  discovery  that  Hamlet  should  say 
that  he  is  "to  the  manor  born."  I  have  certainly  received  fifty  letters,  in- 
deed many  more  than  fifty,  suggesting  this  new  reading.  A  man  who  could 
make  it  should  no  more  be  trusted  with  a  copy  of  Shakespeare  than  a  boy 
of  nine  years  with  a  revolving  razor. 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  153 

the  same  value,  the  same  interest,  the  same  potential 
influence,  whether  the  "  Novum  Organum  "  and  the 
"Comedy  of  Errors"  were  written  by  either  of  them, 
or  by  both,  or  by  neither,  or  whether  Shakespeare 
wrote  the  "  Novum  Organum  "  and  Bacon  the  "  Com- 
edy of  Errors."     I  am  no  partisan  of  William  Shake- 
speare's.    I  take  no  whit  more  interest  in  him,  qua 
William  Shakespeare,  than  the  United  States  troops 
seemed  to  take  in  the  battle  sometimes  called  the  Bla- 
densburg  races.    I  should  not  feel  aggrieved  or  injured 
to  the  value  of  the  pen  with  which  I  am  writing  if  it 
were  proved  that  the  Stratford  yeoman's  son,  who  went 
to  London  and  became  rich  in  the  theatrical  business, 
was   as  incapable   of   writing  his  very  name   as  his 
father  and  his  mother  were ;  but  every  man  of  com- 
mon sense  and  even  a  little  knowledge  of  the  literary 
and  dramatic  history  of  the  times  of  Elizabeth  and 
James  I.  has  the  right  to  feel  aggrieved  and  injured 
when  the  productions  of  the  two  greatest  minds  of 
modern  times  are  made  the  occasion  of  a  gabble  of 
controversy,  the   sole  foundation  of  which  is  a  petty 
parade   of    piddling,    perverted    verbal    coincidences, 
which  have  no  more  real  significance  than  the  likeness 
of  the  notes  of  two  cuckoos,  or  of  two  cuckoo  clocks. 
And  therefore  placeat  Dils  that  there  might  be  dis- 
covered, under  the  hand  and  seal  of  William  Shake- 
speare, a  confession  that  he  was  an  impostor,  and  that 
the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  Ben  Jonson  and  John 
Heminge  and  Henry  Condell,  and  the  people  of  Lon- 
don generally,  were  dupes,  and  that  Francis  Bacon  did 
write  "  Titus  Andronicus  "  and  the  "  Comedy  of  Er- 
rors," and  so  forth  through  the  list.     There  would  be 
so  much  more  passed  to  the  credit  of  him  who  perhaps 
was  "  the  greatest,  wisest,"  but  was  surely  not  "  the 


154  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

meanest,  of  mankind."  l    That  is  all.    This  fuss  would 
be  over,  "  and  soe  well  ended." 

The  subject  is  one  upon  which  some  very  worthy 
and  very  "  literary  "  people  are  in  a  sad  state  of  mind, 
and  about  which  they  have  been  going  on  in  a  more  or 
less  spasmodical  way  for  some  years  ;  and  now  there 
conies  about  it  a  stout  handsome  volume  of  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  pages,  which  represents  so  much 
genuine  enthusiasm  and  such  an  amount  of  honest, 
thorough,  systematic  work  on  the  part  of  an  intelli- 
gent, accomplished  gentlewoman,  that  to  treat  it  as  it 
must  be  treated,  only  upon  its  merits,  is  an  ungrateful 
and  almost  a  forbidding  task.2  The  occasion  of  this 
volume  and  the  substance  of  it  are  furnished  by  some 
memorandums  of  words,  phrases,  proverbs,  adages, 
and  so  forth  in  Bacon's  handwriting,  which  seem  to 
have  been  made  by  him,  perhaps  for  reference,  and 
possibly  for  the  improvement  of  his  style.  They  fill 
fifty  sheets  or  folios,  as  we  are  told,  and  thoy  are  pre- 
served in  the  well-known  Harleian  Collection  of  man- 
uscripts in  the  British  Museum.  Known  long  ago, 
they  were  described  by  Spedding,  Bacon's  able  and 
accomplished  editor,  who,  however,  did  not  deem  them 
of  sufficient  importance  to  be  included  in  his  great 
edition  of  Bacon's  writings.  It  would  have  been  well 
if  they  had  been  left  to  moulder  in  their  fitting  ob- 
scurity ;  for  they  tell  the  world  nothing  that  it  did  not 
know  before,  and  so  far  as  Bacon  himself  is  concerned 


1  Sec  Evenings  with  a  Reviewer,  by  James  Spedding,  2  vols.  Svo,  1883, 
in  which  Macaulav  is  ground  slowly  into  fine  dust:  see  also  The  Personal 
History  of  Lord  Bacon,  by  Hep  worth  Dixon. 

2  The  Promus  of  Formularies  and  Elegancies  (being  private  notes,  circa 
1594,  hitherto  unpublished)  of  Francis  Bacon,  illustrated  and  elucidated  by 
passages  from  Shakespeare.    By  Mrs.  Henry  Pott.     With  Preface  by  E.  A. 
Abbott,  D.  D.     Boston :  Houghtou,  Miffliu  £  Co, 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  155 

they  add  nothing  to  his  reputation  either  for  wisdom 
or  for  knowledge,  —  certainly  nothing  for  scholar- 
ship or  for  critical  acumen.  In  fact,  they  are  at  best 
only  the  dust  and  sweepings  of  his  study  ;  such  stuff 
as  everybody,  except  those  whose  literary  appetite  is 
a  small  sort  of  curiosity  about  distinguished  people, 
would  gladly  see  put  to  real  service  to  mankind  in 
the  kindling  of  fires  or  other  like  domestic  function. 
Their  editress,  however  (Spenser  says  "  poetress,"  and 
Ben  Jonson  "  conqueress ;  "  why  may  we  not  say  "  ed- 
itress"?), brings  them  now  to  light  with  a  higher  pur- 
pose than  the  mere  gratification  of  petty  literary  curi- 
osity. She  fancies  (fancies !  believes,  with  a  faith 
which  would  remove  mountains,  if  faith  indeed  were 
such  an  uncommon  carrier)  that  they  establish  beyond 
all  reasonable  doubt  the  claim  which  she  and  a  few 
fond  fellow-worshippers  have  set  up  for  Bacon  to  the 
authorship  of  the  plays  which  William  Shakespeare, 
in  his  lifetime,  claimed  as  his  ;  which  all  his  personal 
friends,  and  more,  his  personal  enemies,  believed  to  be 
his ;  and  which  have  been  accepted  as  his  for  nearly 
three  hundred  years,  not  only  by  the  world  in  general, 
but  by  all  the  scholars  and  critics  who  were  thoroughly 
informed  upon  the  subject :  —  a  not  illaudable  pur- 
pose, and  one  which  she  has  pursued  with  such  a 
touching  union  of  fervor  and  singleness  of  heart,  and 
such  perfection  of  that  candor  which  disdains  to  take 
advantage  by  any  concealment  or  dexterous  perver- 
sion, —  common  accompaniments  of  enthusiasm,  — 
that  the  result  of  her  labors  cannot  be  contemplated 
without  sadness,  and,  moreover,  without  sorrow  that 
it  may  not  be  treated  with  patience,  hardly  with  de- 
corum. 

The  theory  which  this  great  mass  of  unconnected 


156  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

memorandums  is  published  to  sustain  is  simply  this : 
Bacon  must  have  written  out  these  words  and  phrases 
and  proverbs  for  his  own  use.  Some  few  of  them  are 
found  in  his  acknowledged  writings,  but  the  most  of 
them  he  did  not  use  in  those  writings  ;  and  between 
these,  and  indeed  between  a  great  number  of  them, 
and  certain  passages  of  the  Shakespeare  plays  there  is 
(so  says  enthusiasm)  such  likeness,  either  in  word  or 
in  thought,  that  the  unavoidable  conclusion  is  that  he 
wrote  the  plays.  The  logic  is  of  the  lamest;  for  it 
ignores  practically,  if  not  avowedly,  the  fact  that 
these  words  and  phrases  and  adages  are  in  their  very 
essence  the  common  property  of  the  world,  —  were  the 
common  property  of  the  world  at  the  time  that  Bacon 
wrote  them  down ;  and  that  Bacon  made  notes  of  them 
for  his  own  convenience  chiefly  because  they  were 
such  common  property.  Moreover,  the  painful  and 
elaborate  deploying  of  the  passages  in  the  plays  which 
are  supposed  to  sustain  this  theory,  or,  to  speak  right- 
ly, this  fancy,  exhibits  no  identity  of  phrase  or  of 
thought  which  will  sustain  this  conclusion,  or  indeed  a 
conclusion  of  any  kind,  about  them. 

There  is  only  one  way  of  showing  what  and  how 
great  the  failure  is  ;  and  that  is  the  examination  of 
some  of  the  most  striking  of  the  sixteen  hundred  and 
fifty-five  notes  which,  with  their  accompanying  illus- 
trative passages,  make  up  the  bulk  of  this  big  book, 
The  process  may  be  wearisome ;  but  if  our  task  is  to 
be  performed  at  all,  it  is  unavoidable. 

The  very  first  memorandum  which  is  illustrated  is 
most  characteristic  of  the  whole  of  this  inept  and  ab- 
surdly inconclusive  performance.  It  is,  — 

"  Corni  contra  croci.  Good  means  against  badd, 
homes  to  crosses."  (Promus,  2.) 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  157 

This  is  illustrated  by  five  passages  from  the  plays, 
of  which  here  follow  three  :  — 

And  bear  with  mildness  my  misfortune's  cross. 

3  Henry  VI.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  4. 
And  curbs  himself  even  of  his  natural  scope 
When  you  do  cross  his  humour. 

1  Henry  IV.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 
I  love  not  to  be  cross'd. 
He  speaks  the  mere  contrary.    Crosses  love  not  him. 

Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

This  is  a  hapless  beginning  ;  for  except  in  the  last 
line  of  the  last  quotation,  "cross,"  although  it  has  the 
same  sound  and  is  spelled  with  the  same  letters,  is 
really  not  the  same  word  that  appears  in  Bacon's 
memorandum.  Although  etymologically  the  same,  as 
an  expression  of  thought  it  is  not  the  same  ;  for  it 
means  a  wholly  different  thing.  The  cross  in  the 
"Promus"  adage  is  the  material  cross  (+),  produced 
by  the  setting  together  of  two  straight  rods  or  sticks 
at  right  angles.  It  is  the  cross  of  the  crucifix,  used  fig- 
uratively to  represent  the  influence  of  divine  goodness 
and  self-sacrificing  love.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
horns  of  this  adage  are  the  horns  of  Satan,  which  are 
used  to  typify  the  spirit  of  evil.  Thus  the  opposition 
of  good  and  evil  was  expressed.  Moreover,  the  cruci- 
fix, or  any  cross,  as  that  of  a  sword-hilt,  was  supposed, 
even  in  Bacon's  time,  to  have  the  power  of  exorcising 
evil  spirits.  Satan  himself  could  not  face  it.  An  im- 
pressive scene  it  is  in  "  Faust "  where  the  throng  of 
armed  men  draw  their  swords,  and  present  to  Mephis- 
topheles,  not  their  points  or  their  edges,  but  their 
cross-hilts,  from  the  sight  of  which  he  hides  his  eyes 
and  shrinks  away.  This  is  the  cross,  and  this  the 
meaning,  of  the  "  Promus  "  adage.  But  in  all  the  in- 
stances cited  above  from  Shakespeare  the  word  "cross" 


158  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

means  merely  opposition,  movement  against,  and  (ex- 
cept in  the  third  and  fourth  cases)  consequent  dis- 
aster. "Misfortune's  cross  "  is,  This  disastrous  stroke 
of  misfortune ;  "  When  you  do  cross  his  humour  "  is, 
When  you  do  vexatiously  run  counter  to  his  humor. 
So  in  the  other  cases.  In  these  passages  there  is  not 
the  remotest  suggestion  of  the  cross  of  the  crucifix 
which  is  to  be  opposed,  as  a  token  of  divine  love 
and  power,  to  the  horns  of  Satan,  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  evil.  The  notion  of  any  connection  between 
them  and  the  adage  is  preposterous.  We  are  told  at 
the  end  of  the  illustrative  passages  that  the  word  oc- 
curs "  thirty  times  "  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  which  any 
one  might  see  by  consulting  Mrs.  Clarke's  Concord- 
ance. So  it  might  have  occurred  three  thousand  times, 
and  with  just  as  little  significance  or  pertinence  to  the 
matter  in  hand.  As  well  cite  in  illustration  of  the 
"  Pronms  "  adage,  — 

Cross  patch, 

Draw  the  latch, 

Sit  by  the  fire  and  spin; 

and  very  much  better,  — 

Ride  a  cock  horse 
To  Danbury-cross, 

for  at  Danbury  there  was  such  a  cross  as  Bacon  had 
in  mind. 

Because  this  is  the  first  example,  and  because  it  is 
so  very  characteristic  and  typical  an  example  of  these 
marvellous  illustrations  of  the  coincidences  between 
the  Shakespeare  plays  and  Bacon's  "  Promus,"  more 
time  and  attention  have  been  given  to  it  than  can  be 
spared  to  those  which  follow  ;  through  the  fretful  ar- 
ray of  which  we  must  push  rapidly. 

We  turn  a  leaf,  and  at  the  top  of  the  page  we 
find,  "  Nolite  dare  sanctum  canibus,  —  Give  not  that 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CRAZE.  159 

which  is  holy  unto  dogs  "  (Promus,  11)  ;  which  is  il- 
lustrated by  the  following  passage  from  "  As  You  Like 
It:"- 

Ctlia.  Why  cousin  !  .  .  .  not  a  word  ? 
JRos.  Not  one  to  throw  at  a  dog. 

Ctlia.  No,  thy  words  are  too  precious  to  be  cast  away  upon  curs. 

Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

Again  a  typical  example  of  a  sort  of  "  illustration " 
which  swarms  through  these  pages.  It  is  absolutely 
without  importance,  and  without  significance  of  any 
kind.  For  as  the  reader  will  doubtless  have  already 
seen,  the  words  in  the  "  Promus  "  are  from  the  New 
Testament  (Matt.  vii.  6)  ;  they  were  known  all  over 
Europe,  and  had  surely  been  in  constant  colloquial  use 
for  centuries  before  Bacon  was  born.  And  there  are 
hundreds  of  just  such  meaningless  illustrations  in  this 
volume. 

It  is  difficult  to  keep  one's  countenance,  even  if  the 
effort  should  be  made,  when  we  find  Bacon's  memo- 
randum (Promus,  24)  of  Virgil's  "  Procul,  o  procul 
este  profani  "  (Away,  away,  ye  profane),  illustrated  by 
Falstaff 's  outbreak  upon  Nym  and  Pistol :  — 

Rogues,  hence  !  avaunt !  vanish  like  hailstones  !  go ! 

Merry  Wives,  Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

In  the  newest  fangle  of  Shakespearean,  or  anti-Shake- 
spearean, criticism  are  we  required  to  assume  as  a  pos- 
tulate that  a  dramatist  of  the  Elizabethan  period  was 
unable  to  use  his  mother  tongue  in  a  plain,  direct,  and 
somewhat  effective  manner,  without  reference  to  a 
commonplace  book  of  the  Latin  classics  ? 

Our  next  example  is  one  of  a  sort  not  uncommon,  in 
which  the  same  word  occurs  in  both  "  Promus  "  and 
play,  but  with  a  meaning  wholly  and  absolutely  oppo- 
site. It  is  the  following :  "  Semper  virgines  furice  " 
(Promus,  43)  ;  in  which  Erasmus  notes  the  remark- 


160  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

able  fact  that  ths  Furies  are  always  represented  as 
maidens,  as  angels  are  always  masculine.  The  illus- 
tration here  is  from  "  Much  Ado  About  Nothing :  "  — 

Her  cousin,  an  she  were  not  possessed  with  a  fury,  exceeds  her  as 
much  in  beauty  as  the  first  of  May  doth  the  last  of  December. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

In  this  speech,  Benedick,  on  the  contrary,  expresses 
his  surprise ;  he  regards  it  as  an  extraordinary  com- 
bination that  virginal  beauty  should  be  accompanied 
by  sharp  temper  and  a  shrewish  tongue,  —  a  union 
that  would  not  have  astonished  Erasmus,  nor,  indeed, 
Bacon. 

These  illustrations  of  Bacon's  commonplacing  by 
the  Shakespeare  plays  frequently  present  us,  on  the 
one  hand,  an  adage  or  a  phrase  so  long  known  the 
civilized  world  over  that  no  repetition  nor  use  of  it  by 
any  writer  in  any  language,  within  the  last  five  hun- 
dred years,  would  be  stronger  proof  of  acquaintance 
with  any  other  writer  who  also  used  it  than  the  as- 
sertion that  there  was  a  sun  in  the  heavens ;  and,  on 
the  other,  a  string  of  passages  which  have  not  only 
no  relation  to  the  phrase  to  be  illustrated,  but  none  to 
each  other ;  and  which  are  like  a  class  in  a  district 
school,  —  Yankees,  Irish,  Germans,  French,  and  Ital- 
ians, all  bawling  out  together  at  the  word  of  com- 
mand, some  right  and  some  wrong,  none  with  any 
real  understanding  of  what  they  are  saying,  and 
having  in  blood,  in  speech,  or  in  purpose  no  semblance 
of  kindred,  coherence,  or  unity.  Of  this  sort  is  the 
following :  — 

"  Etjustificata  est  sapientia  a  filiis  sids,  —  Wis- 
dom is  justified  of  her  children."  (Promus,  249.) 

This,  again,  is  from  the  New  Testament  (Matt.  xi. 
19"),  and  was  the  common  property  of  Europe  for 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CRAZE.  161 

turies  before  Bacon's  time ;  its  English  form  having 
been  nearly  as  well  known  as  the  Ten  Commandments 
or  the  Lord's  Prayer  three  hundred  years  before  Ba- 
con was  born.  It  means,  we  need  hardly  say,  that  the 
children  of  wisdom  justify  (that  is,  prove)  their  par- 
entage by  their  conduct ;  they  "  behave  as  sich,"  — 
an  adage  as  nearly  true  as  "  Train  up  a  child  in  the 
way  he  should  go,  and  when  he  is  old  he  will  not 
depart  from  it,"  or  as  "  Just  as  the  twig  is  bent  the 
tree  's  inclined."  This  has  the  following  illustra- 
tions :  — 

And  make  us  heirs  of  all  eternity.      Love's  Labour's  Lost,  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Earthly  godfathers  of  heaven's  lights.      76. 

This  child  of  fancy.      Ib. 

The  first  heir  of  my  invention.      Dedication  to  Venus  and  Adonis. 

The  children  of  an  idle  brain.      Romeo  and  Juliet,  Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

What  possible  connection  or  relation  is  discoverable 
between  these  passages  and  the  declaration  in  regard 
to  the  children  of  wisdom  ?  There  is  none,  except 
that  in  the  one,  as  in  the  others,  the  idea  of  childhood 
or  of  heirship  is  presented.  Had  Elizabeth  given  her 
young  Lord  Keeper  a  monopoly  of  these? 

Passing  rapidly  on,  among  these  memorandums  we 
find  the  very  familiar  phrase  "  Prima  facie  "  (Pro- 
mus,  299)  ;  the  illustration  of  which  (Love  at  first 
sight,  "  As  You  Like  It,"  Act  III.  Sc.  5  ;  "  Troilus 
and  Cressida,"  Act  V.  Sc.  2 ;  "  Tempest,"  Act  I.  Sc.  2) 
I  pass  by  in  mute  admiration,  as  I  do  that  of  our  next 
example,  "  A  catt  may  look  on  a  kynge  "  (Promus, 
489)  ;  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  origin  of  the  fol- 
lowing question  and  answer :  — 

Ben.    What  is  Tybalt  ? 

Mer.    More  than  prince  of  cats.      Romeo  and  Juliet,  Act  IT.  Sc.  4. 

That  is,  I  would  pass  it  by,  leaving  it  to  stand  in 

staring  ineptness  and  puerility,  but  for  its  flagrant 
11 


162  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

exhibition  of  a  kind  and  degree  of  ignorance  of 
Shakespeare's  writings  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
Bacon-saving  Shakespearean.  For  the  reason  of 
Juliet's  cousin  being  called  prince  of  cats  by  the 
witty  Mercutio  is  that  "  Tybert,  Tybalt,  Thibault " 
(all  really  one  name),  means  a  cat,  just  as  "  Gri- 
malkin "  and  "  Tabby  "  do  in  English.  Tybert  is  the 
name  of  the  cat  in  the  Middle  Age  apologue,  "  Rey- 
nard the  Fox."  And  in  the  old  Italian  story  of  "  Ro- 
meo e  Julietta,"  which  furnishes  the  whole  substance 
of  the  Shakespeare  tragedy,  Juliet's  cousin  is  named 
Tibaldo.  This  story  was  translated  by  Arthur  Brooke 
into  an  English  poem,  "  Romeus  and  Julietta,"  and 
published  at  London  in  1562 ;  and  this  poem  it  is  that 
was  dramatized  into  the  great  English  tragedy.  In  it, 
Juliet's  cousin's  name  is  Tybalt.  So  far,  then,  is  it 
from  being  true  that  he  was  called  prince  of  cats  be- 
cause Francis  Bacon  wrote  among  his  commonplaces, 
"  A  catt  may  look  on  a  kynge  "  (shade  of  Aristotle, 
what  an  inference !),  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
that  the  "  Promus  "  memorandum  had  any  connection 
with  Mercutio's  speech.  For  Juliet's  quarrelsome 
kinsman  was  made  known  to  all  English  readers  by 
his  typical  name  in  a  rhymed  story,  which  was  well 
known  (and  which  soon  became  popular)  at  a  time 
when  the  future  philosopher  and  Lord  Chancellor  was 
in  long  clothes,  —  he  having  been  born  in  the  year  be- 
fore that  in  which  Brooke's  "Romeus  and  Julietta" 
was  published.  His  u  Promus  "  memorandum  could 
have  had  no  more  to  do  with  the  calling  Tybalt  prince 
of  cats  than  it  had  with  the  origin  of  u  Puss  in  Boots." 
"  Neither  too  heavy  nor  too  hot  "  (Promus,  651), 
a  saying  which  was  applied  to  a  bold  thief,  who  would 
steal  anything  not  too  heavy  or  too  hot  for  him  to 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CRAZE.  163 

carry,  is  illustrated  by  sixteen  passages  from  the  plays, 
not  one  of  which  has  the  slightest  connection  with  it  or 
similarity  to  it,  except  the  presence  of  one  of  the  two 
common  English  words,  "  heavy  "  and  "  hot ;  "  as  may 
be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  the  first  is,  "  Are  you 
so  hot,  sir  ?  "  (1  Henry  V.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2),  and  the 
last,  "  Seneca  cannot  be  too  heavy  nor  Plautus  too 
light."  (Hamlet,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2.) 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  startling  of  these  illustra- 
tions is  that  of  "  a  ring  of  gold  on  a  swynes  snout " 
(687)  ;  which  degrading  satirical  comparison  is  pre- 
sented as  the  origin  of  Romeo's  beautiful  extrava- 

O 

gance  "like  a  rich  jewel  in  an  Ethiop's  ear."  The 
absurdity  of  this  is  not  all  apparent  without  a  consid- 
eration of  the  whole  of  the  lover's  simile :  — 

Her  beauty  hangs  upon  the  cheek  of  night 
Like  a  rich  jewel  in  an  Ethiop's  ear  :  — 

Act  I.  Sc.  5. 

which  is  but  a  variation  of  the  passage  in  the 
XXVIIth  Sonnet:  — 

Save  that  my  soul's  imaginary  sight 
Presents  thy  shadow  to  my  sightless  view, 
Which  like  a  jewel  hung  in  ghastly  night 
Makes  black  night  beauteous,  and  her  old  face  new. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  solemn  figure  of  Night 
with  her  dark,  begemmed  robe  was  suggested  to  the 
author  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  by  a  pig's  snout,  with  a 
ring  in  it  to  keep  him  from  rooting. 

That  memorandum  706,  "  Laconismus"  from  Eras- 
mus's "  Adagia,"  should  be  illustrated  by  "  Like  the 
Romans  in  brevity  "  is  fairly  Irish  in  its  blundering  ; 
as  the  Laconians  were  not  Romans,  but  Greeks, 
which  Francis  Bacon  surely  knew.  But  as  the  illus- 
tration is  from  "King  Henry  IV.,"  perhaps  it  was 
the  embryo  Pistol  who  put  in  his  oar  here.  He  was  in 


164  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

the  habit  of  talking  of  Trojan  Greeks  and  Phrygian 
Turks,  and  the  like  two-headed  monsters. 

Many  others  of  Bacon's  "  Promus  "  memorandums 
are  from  Erasmus ;  and  at  meeting  among  them  the 
one  here  following,  every  true  "  American "  heart 
must  flutter  with  joy  and  pride  :  — 

"  Riper  than  a  mulberry.  (^Maturior  moro,  —  Of 
a  mild,  soft-mannered  man,  etc.)  "  (Promus,  869.) 

Did  Bacon, — tell  us,  did  he, —  looking  forward 
nearly  three  centuries,  project  his  all-creative  mind 
into  the  dramatic  future  of  this  country,  and  in  this 
memorandum  give  the  New  World  the  germ  of  the 
great  mulberry,  Colonel  Mulberry  Sellers  ?  It  must 
be  S0o  The  colonel,  beyond  a  doubt,  was  a  mild,  soft- 
mannered  man.  How,  indeed,  is  it  possible  that  any- 
body could  have  dreamed  of  a  mulberry,  unless  the 
word  had  been  previously  commonplaced  by  Bacon ! 
Perish  the  thought!  The  discovery  of  the  " Promus  " 
establishes,  beyond  a  question,  that  Mulberry  Sellers 
is  Bacon's  boon  to  "  America." 

In  like  manner  we  learn  that  Charles  Reatle  has 
hitherto  been  most  unjustly  credited  with  the  concep- 
tion of  one  of  his  own  novels ;  for  as  number  959  of 
the  "Promus  "  memorandums  we  find  "  Love  me  little, 
love  me  long ;  "  and  what  more  is  needed  to  show 
where  Mr.  Reade  found  the  title  and  the  motive  of  his 
charming  book  ? 

In  memorandum  lf)44,  "Soleil  qui  luise  au  matin, 
femme  qui  parle  latin,  enfant  nourrit  de  vin,  ne  vient 
point  a  bonne  fin"  who  can  hesitate  for  a  moment  at 
discovering  that  we  have  the  origin  of  that  admirable 
poetical  embodiment  of  common  sense  and  common 
experience, 

Whistlin'  gals  an'  crowin'  hens 
Never  comes  to  no  good  ends  ? 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  165 

But  this  part  of  our  subject  is  becoming  too  grave 
and  serious,  and  I  must  bring  it  to  a  close  with  an 
illustration  of  a  lighter  and  more  amusing  nature ;  to 
wit,  the  following  :  — 

" Nourriture passe  nature"  (Promus,  1595.) 
This  adage,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  means  that 
breeding  is  a  second  nature,  stronger  than  that  with 
which  a  man  is  born.  Would  it  be  believed,  without 
the  evidence  of  black  and  white  before  us,  that,  in 
proof  that  Bacon  wrote  the  Shakespeare  plays,  the 
first  and  principal  illustration  of  this  adage  is  the  fol- 
lowing passage  from  Pericles  ?  — 

Those  mothers,  who,  to  nonsle  up  their  babes 
Thought  nought  too  curious,  are  ready  now 
To  eat  those  little  darlings  whom  they  lov^d. 
So  sharp  are  hunger's  teeth,  that  man  and  wife 
Draw  lots  who  first  shall  die  to  lengthen  life. 

Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

The  italic  emphasis  of  the  third  line  is  mine ;  and  I 
have  thus  distinguished  it,  because  as  an  illustration 
of  "  Nourriture  passe  nature "  it  surpasses  all  the 
Shakespearean  jokes  that  I  have  had  the  good  fortune 
to  encounter.  There  are  five  hundred  mortal  octavo 
pages  of  proofs  and  illustrations,  of  which  the  fore- 
going are  fair  examples,  that  Francis  Bacon  wrote 
Mr.  William  Shakespeare's  thirty-seven  comedies,  his- 
tories, and  tragedies  !  One  more  of  them  shall  delay 
us  a  moment.  "Promus"  memorandum  1404  is  "O 
the  ;  "  and  this  wholly  senseless  union  of  words  is 
seriously  illustrated  by  the  following  passages,  of 
which  it  is  assumed  to  be  the  origin  :  "  O  the  heav- 
ens!" "O  the  devil!"  UO  the  time!"  UO  the 
gods!"  "O  the  good  gods!"  "O  the  vengeance!" 
"  O  all  the  devils  !  "  "  O  the  Lord  !  "  "  O  the  blest 
gods  I  "  It  is  needless  to  give  the  titles  of  the  plays 


166  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

from  which  they  are  taken.  When  Benedick  said  that 
he  should  die  a  bachelor  he  did  not  think  that  he 
would  live  to  be  married.  When  I  wrote  the  fore- 
going assertion  about  Shakespearean  jokes  I  had  not 
read  this  number  of  the  "  Promus  "  and  its  illustra- 
tions. They  bear  the  palm.  The  fair  editress  might 
have  deprived  us  of  our  laugh  if  she  had  perceived  that 
the  meaningless  "  O  the,"  which  could  be  the  origin 
of  nothing,  is  a  mere  irregular  phonetic  spelling  of 
oath,  —  othe,  in  which  the  first  letter  was  accidentally 
separated  from  the  second.  This  is  shown  by  the  im- 
mediately following  memorandums :  (1405)  "  O  my 
L[ord]  Sr,"  (1406)  "Beleeveit,"  (1409)  "Mought 
it  please  God  that,"  or,  "  I  would  to  God."  Why 
Bacon  wrote  down  phrases  like  this,  here  and  else- 
where, seems  inexplicable ;  but  that  is  not  to  the 
purpose. 

What  is  evidently  regarded  as  the  strong  point  of 
this  array  of  evidence  in  favor  of  the  Baconian  origin 
of  the  Shakespeare  plays  is  folio  111  of  the  "  Promus." 
It  is  endorsed  by  Bacon,  "Formularies  and  Elegan- 
cies ;  "  and  it  contains  forty-five  memorandums  (1189- 
1233)  of  phrases  either  of  salutation  or  of  compli- 
mentary remark  in  connection  with  the  time  of  day,  or 
what  has  been  known  time  out  of  mind  in  the  En- 
glish language,  and  among  people  of  English  blood 
and  speech,  as  giving  the  time  of  day.  First  among 
these  memorandums  is  "  Good  morrow  "  (1189)  ;  we 
find  also  among  them  "  Good  matens  "  (1192),  "  Good 
betimes  "  (1193),  "  Bon  iouyr,  Bon  iour  bridegroom e  " 
(1194),  "  Good  day  to  me,  and  good  morrow  to  you  " 
(1195),  and  the  pretty  conceit,  "  I  have  not  said  all 
my  prayers  till  I  have  bid  you  good  morrow  "  (1196). 
Here  Bacon's  enthusiastic  champion  throws  down  the 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CRAZE.  167 

gauge  and  takes  a  stand  so  boldly,  and  maintains  it  so 
earnestly,  that  it  would  be  both  unfair  and  unwise 
not  to  set  forth  fully  the  point  upon  which  she  joins 
issue. 

It  is  asserted  that  this  folio  generally,  and  particu- 
larly in  these  phrases  of  morning  salutation,  supports 
"  a  reasonable  belief  that  these  4  Promus '  notes  are  by 
the  same  hand  that  penned  4  Romeo  and  Juliet.' "  The 
ground  of  this  reasonable  belief  is  that  these  forms  of 
salutation,  although  they  "  are  introduced  into  almost 
every  play  of  Shakespeare,  .  .  .  certainly  were  not  in 
common  use  until  many  years  after  the  publication  of 
these  plays,"  and  that  "  it  appears  to  be  the  case  " 
(risum  teneatis  /)  that  "  they  were  of  Bacon's  intro- 
duction." This  is  insisted  upon  again  and  again : 
as,  for  example,  "  It  certainly  does  not  appear  that, 
as  a  rule,  any  forms  of  morning  and  evening  saluta- 
tion were  used  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, nor,  indeed,  until  after  the  writing  of  this  folio 
(111),  which  is  placed  between  the  folios  dated  Decem- 
ber, 1594,  and  others  bearing  the  date  January  27, 
1595  ;  "  and  again,  "  It  seems  to  have  been  the  prac- 
tice for  friends  to  meet  in  the  morning,  and  to  part  at 
night,  without  any  special  form  of  greeting  or  valedic- 
tion ;  "  and  again,  "  In  Ben  Jonson's  plays  .  .  .  there 
is  hardly  one,  except  in  '  Every  Man  in  his  Humour/ 
where  you  twice  meet  with  '  good  morrow.'  But  this 
play  was  written  in  1598,  a  year  after  '  Romeo  and 
Juliet'  was  published,  and  four  years  after  the  date 
usually  assigned  to  that  tragedy.  '  Good  morrow ' 
might  have  become  familiar  merely  by  means  of  '  Ro- 
meo and  Juliet ; '  but  it  does  not  appear  that  it  had 
become  a  necessary  or  common  salutation,"  etc.  And 
yet  again,  "  It  is  certain  that  the  habit  of  using  forms 


168  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

of  morning  and  evening  salutation  was  not  introduced 
into  England  prior  to  the  date  of  Bacon's  notes, 
1594." 

This  is  the  most  amazing  assertion,  and  this  the 
most  amazing  inference,  that  exists,  to  my  knowledge, 
in  all  English  critical  literature.  If  the  assertion  had 
been  made  in  connection  with  another  subject,  and  the 
inference  had  been  drawn  in  regard  to  a  point  of  less 
general  interest  than  the  influence  of  Bacon  or  of 
Shakespeare  upon  the  manners  and  speech  of  their 
time,  or  even  if  they  had  not  been  here  trumpeted 
so  triumphantly  as  a  note  of  victory,  they  might  well 
have  been  passed  by  in  smiling  silence.  But  the  cir- 
cumstances give  them  an  importance  not  their  own ; 
and  the  confident  manner  in  which  they  are  set  forth, 
with  an  array  of  citation  that  may  be  mistaken  for 
proof,  might  mislead  many  readers  whose  knowledge 
of  the  subject  is  even  less  than  that  which  is  shown 
by  the  enthusiastic  and  well-read  compiler  of  this 
volume. 

First,  the  fact  asserted  is  in  its  very  nature  so  in- 
credible that  it  could  not  be  received  as  established 
upon  any  merely  negative  evidence.  That  any  civil- 
ized, or  half-civilized,  people  of  the  Indo-European 
race  should  have  existed  in  the  sixteenth  century 
without  customary  salutation  and  valediction  at  morn- 
ing and  evening  could  not  be  believed,  upon  the  mere 
absence  of  such  phrases  in  their  literature.  Such  ab- 
sence, if  it  existed,  would  have  to  be  accounted  for 
upon  some  other  supposition.  This  is  one  of  those 
cases  in  which  reasoning  a  priori  is  of  more  weight 
than  negative  evidence.  A  society  so  beyond  civility 
as  to  be  without  forms  of  salutation  would  be  one  in 
which  neither  a  Bacon  nor  a  Shakespeare  would  be 
possible. 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  169 

Leaving  this  point  without  further  remark,  it  is  to 
be  said  simply  that  the  assertion  is  absolutely  untrue ; 
and  with  the  assertion  goes,  of  course,  the  inference 
drawn  from  it.  The  fair  advocate  of  Bacon  herself 
furnishes  evidence  against  it.  For  she  is  very  candid ; 
and  indeed,  were  her  knowledge  and  her  critical  ability 
only  equal  to  her  candor  and  her  industry,  she  would 
have  produced  a  very  valuable  and  interesting  work,  or 
—  none  at  all.  She  has  painfully  searched  an  incredi- 
ble number  of  books  of  the  Elizabethan  and  post- 
Elizabethan  period,  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  and 
maintaining  her  thesis,  and  has  even  catalogued  the 
results  of  her  examination.  Hence,  alone,  her  careful 
readers  are  able  to  see,  even  if  they  did  not  know  it 
before,  that  such  forms  as  "good  morrow,"  "good 
night,"  "  good  bye,"  and  the  like,  are  used  by  these 
writers  of  that  time :  Gascoigne,  Stubbs,  Ben  Jonson, 
Fletcher,  Beaumont,  and  Heywood  ;  all  of  them  men 
who  wrote  between  1580  and  1620  ;  and  to  these  there 
might  be  numerous  additions.  Is  it  to  be  believed 
that  these  writers  put  into  the  mouths  of  their  person- 
ages phrases  of  this  nature  which  were  not  in  common 
colloquial  use  ?  But  we  are  told  that  people  began 
suddenly,  and  all  at  once,  to  say  "  good  morrow,"  and 
the  like,  to  each  other,  because  Francis  Bacon  had 
elaborated  those  phrases  in  his  "  Promus,"  and  intro- 
duced them  in  his  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  to  the  English 
people.  Bacon  is  made  equivalent  to  the  hunger  which 
"  expedivit  [Persius's]  psittaco  suum  xatP€«"  Will 
any  one  not  bitten  and  mad  with  the  Bacon-Shake- 
speare oestrum  believe  this,  or  pause  for  one  moment 
in  doubt  over  its  preposterous  incredibility?  But 
even  our  Bacon  enthusiast  is,  in  candor,  obliged  to 
confess  one  fact  which  is  mortal  to  the  theory  which 


170  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

she  has  undertaken  to  maintain.  We  are  told  in  a 
footnote,  and  in  one  of  the  appendices,  that  since  the 
volume  was  compiled  its  editress,  or  some  one  for  her, 
has  discovered  that  the  salutation  "  good  morrow " 
occurs  in  the  dialogue  of  John  Bon  and  Master  Per- 
son [parson],  which  was  printed  in  1548,  nearly  half 
a  century  before  Bacon  jotted  down  his  "  Proinus," 
and,  what  is  something  to  the  purpose,  thirteen  years 
before  he  was  born  :  — 

The  Parson.    What,  John  Bon  !     Good  morrowe  to  thee ! 
John  Bon.     Novve  good  morrowe,  Mast.  Person,  so  mut  I  thee.1 

The  fact  that  Gascoigne  had  written  in  1557,  before 
Bacon  was  born,  two  poems,  "  Good  Morrow "  and 
"  Good  Night,"  had  been  set  aside,  or  "  got  over,"  by 
the  astonishing  plea  that  these  were  only  titles,  and 
not  colloquial  uses  of  these  phrases !  (But  if  they 
were  not  known  as  salutations,  with  what  propriety 
were  they  used  as  titles?)  And  as  to  John  Bon 
and  Master  Person,  there  is  a  despairing  attempt  to 
show  that  "  good  morrow "  was  not  a  morning  salu- 
tation, and  that  "  the  first  use  for  that  purpose  seems 
to  be  in  4  Eomeo  and  Juliet.'  "  Great  Phoebus,  god 
of  the  morning  !  For  what,  then,  was  "  good  morrow  " 
used  ?  Surely,  the  force  of  self-delusion  could  no  fur- 
ther go. 

To  have  given  so  much  time  to  the  examination  of 
this  frantic  fancy  would  have  been  more  than  wasteful, 
were  it  not  that  within  its  petty  convolutions  is  in- 
volved another,  which  is  of  as  much  importance  as 
anything  can  be  that  is  connected  with  this  subject. 
It  is  fortunate,  ad  hoc,  that  the  point  was  made  ;  for  it 
is  fatal  to  the  whole  bearing  of  this  "  Promus  "  upon 
the  Bacon  theory  of  the  Shakespeare  plays.  It  is  so 
1  "  So  mut  [or  mote]  I  thee  "  =  so  might  I  thrive ;  so  may  I  prosper. 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  171 

because  we  have,  according  to  the  Bacon-saving-Shake- 
speare  folk  themselves,  Bacon's  own  testimony  that 
English  people,  of  all  sorts  and  conditions,  were  in  the 
constant  habit  of  using  salutations,  particularly  in  the 
morning. 

In  the  Second  Part  of  "King  Henry  VI.,"  Act  III. 
Sc.  1,  is  the  following  passage :  — 

Queen.     We  know  the  time  since  he  was  mild  and  affable, 
And  if  we  did  but  glance  a  far-off  look, 
Immediately  he  was  upon  his  knee, 
That  all  the  court  admir'd  him  for  submission. 
But  meet  him  now,  and  be  it  in  the  morn, 
When  every  one  icill  (jive  the  time  of  day, 
He  knits  his  brows  and  shows  an  angry  eye, 
And  passeth  by,  etc. 

The  bearing  of  this  passage  is  such,  it  is  so  broad,  so 
clear,  so  direct,  and  its  testimony  comes  from  such  a 
quarter,  that  it  might  be  well  to  leave  the  point  upon 
which  it  touches  without  another  word  of  remark ;  but 
it  may  also  be  well  to  set  forth  its  full  importance  and 
significance.  It  will  be  seen  that  here,  according  to 
those  who  proclaim  that  Bacon  is  Shakespeare,  and 
that  they  are  his  prophets,  Bacon  himself  declares  that 
at  the  time  when  lie  wrote  this  passage  "every  one"  in 
England  said  "good  morning ;  "  that  it  was  recognized 
as  so  general  and  absolute  a  requirement  of  good  man- 
ners that  the  omission  of  it  gave  occasion  for  censure. 
Now  this  passage,  although  it  is  found  in  the  Second 
Part  of  "  King  Henry  VI.,"  appears  originally,  word  for 
word,  in  a  play  of  which  Bacon  (or,  as  some  un-illu- 
minated  people  believe,  Shakespeare)  was  one  of  the 
writers,  called  "  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  of 
the  Two  Noble  Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,"  which 
was  worked  over  into  the  "  Henry  VI."  play,  and  which 
must  have  been  in  existence  in  the  year  1591,  as  it  is 
referred  to  in  a  book  published  in  1592.  Whence  we 


172  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

see  that  this  declaration  of  Bacon  the  playwright  as  to 
giving  the  time  of  day  "  in  the  morn  "  by  "  every  one  " 
antedates  the  memorandum  of  Bacon  the  "  Promus  " 
writer  at  least  three  years.  According,  therefore,  to 
people  with  whose  fancies  we  are  now  dealing  seri- 
ously, Bacon  himself  tells  us  that  he  did  not  teach  the 
people  of  England  to  bid  each  other  good  morrow  by 
writing  "  Romeo  and  Juliet ;  "  and  perhaps  even  they 
—  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  folk  —  are  now  beginning 
to  suspect  that  the  writer  of  "  John  Bon  and  Master 
Person  "  and  the  poetGascoigne,  when  they  used  "  good 
morrow "  and  "  good  night,"  were  simply  repeat- 
ing phrases  which  were  even  commoner  than  mere 
household  words,  and  had  been  so  in  England  for  cen- 
turies. 

And  yet  again,  this  passage,  which  appears  in  "  The 
First  Part  of  the  Contention  "  and  in  the  Second  Part 
of  "  King  Henry  VI.,"  is  one  of  those  as  to  the  author- 
ship of  which  there  is  no  doubt.  Whatever  his  name 
was,  the  writer  of  it  was  the  writer  of  the  Shakespeare 
plays.  Whoever  wrote  that  passage  wrote  also  "  As 
You  Like  It,"  "  Hamlet,"  "  King  Lear,"  and  "  Othel- 
lo," and  the  rest.  And  this  man,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  not  the  one  who  felt  it  necessary  to  potter  over  a 
"  Prornus  "  of  elegancies  in  salutation  to  justify  him  in 
the  use  of  "  good  morrow."  For,  moreover,  this  man 
had  used  this  phrase  in  at  least  five  plays  which  pre- 
ceded the  "Promus"  and  "Romeo  and  Juliet."  It 
occurs  (as  any  one  may  see  by  referring  to  Mrs. 
Clarke's  Concordance)  in  "  Love's  Labour  's  Lost," 
"  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,"  "  Titus  Androni- 
cus,"  "King  Richard  III.,"  and  "A  Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream,"  all  of  which  are  earlier  than  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet,"  as  it  should  seem  that  any  person  who 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  173 

ventured  to  write  upon  this  subject  would  know.1 
That  "  Romeo  and  Juliet"  brought  "good  morrow" 
into  use  in  England  as  a  morning  salutation  is  impos- 
sible ;  the  notion  that  any  writer  brought  it  into  use 
in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  or  within  centuries  of  that 
reign,  is,  to  any  person  competent  to  have  an  opinion 
upon  the  subject,  ridiculously  absurd. 

We  have,  however,  not  yet  seen  the  extreme  of  the 
ignorance  which  is  displayed  in  this  attempt  to  show 
that  the  writer  of  the  "  Promos  "  was  also  the  writer 
of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet."  In  this  folio  (111)  of  the 
"  Promus,"  memorandum  1200  is  "  rome  ; "  upon 
which  we  find  the  following  comment  in  the  Introduc- 
tory Essay  to  this  volume  :  — 

"  Ono  can  scarcely  avoid  imagining  that  the  solitary  word 
'  rome,'  which  is  entered  six  notes  (44)  farther  on  in  the  '  Promus ' 
with  a  mark  of  abbreviation  over  the  e,  may  have  been  a  hint  for 
the  name  of  the  bridegroom  himself.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
*  rome '  may  be  intended  for  the  Greek  word  PU/J.T)  =  strength^ 
and  that  the  mark  may  denote  that  the  vowel  (e)  is  long  in  quan- 
tity. The  objection  to  this  suggestion  is  that  Bacon  frequently 
uses  a  mark  of  abbreviation,  whilst  in  no  other  Greek  word  does 
he  take  any  heed  of  quantity  ;  but  were  it  so,  it  would  not  ex- 

1  What  rashness  may,  and  generally  does,  accompany  the  effort  to 
transmute  Shakespeare  into  Bacon  is  shown  here  in  regard  to  this  very 
question  of  the  date  of  the  production  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  It  is  re- 
marked in  the  Introductory  Essay  (page  G8),  "The  publication  of  R'imeo 
and  Juliet  is  lixed  at  1597,  and  its  composition  has  been  usually  ascribed 
to  1594-5.  .  .  .  Recently,  however,  Dr.  Delias  has  proposed  the  date 
15!)2  for  the  composition  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  on  the  ground  that  a  cer- 
tain earthquake  which  took  place  in  1580  is  alluded  to  by  the  Nurse  (I.  iii.) 
as  having  happened  eleven  years  ago."  Wonderful  discovery  on  the  part 
of  the  German  doctor!  Wonderful  discovery  of  the  German  doctor  by  our 
editress!  This  point  as  to  the  bearing  of  the  Nurse's  earthquake  on  the 
date  of  the  play  was  made  by  Tyrwhitt  more  fhan  a  hundred  years  nyo, 
and  has  been  discussed  by  every  considerable  editor  since.  The  notes  upon 
it  in  Furness's  variorum  edition  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  lill  two  pages.  Pro- 
posed by  Dr.  Delius!  But  if  English-speaking  folk  will  run  after  strange 
High  German  gods  they  cannot  complaiu  if  they  are  led  into  trouble. 


174  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

tiuguish  the  possibility  that  the  word  may  have  been  intended 
as  a  hint  for  the  name  of  Romeo,  alluding  perhaps  to  the  strength 
of  the  love  which  is  alluded  to  in  the  following  passages,"  etc. 

If  what  we  have  seen  before  is  amazing,  the  gravity 
of  this  is  astounding.  A  hint  for  the  name  of  the 
bridegroom  !  An  allusion  in  Greek  to  the  strength 
of  his  passion !  Why,  who  that  has  the  slightest  and 
most  superficial  acquaintance  with  the  origin  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  does  not  know  that  the  name  of  the 
bridegroom  in  this  tragedy  was  furnished  by  the  old 
poem,  of  which  it  is  a  mere  dramatization,  —  a  poem 
familiar  to  the  people  of  London  for  years  before  the 
tragedy  was  produced,  or  the  "  Promus  "  memoran- 
dums written,  —  and  that  it  came  into  that  poem  from 
a  story  which  had  been  told  and  retold  by  various  writ- 
ers for  generations  ?  The  "  name  of  the  bridegroom  " 
was  settled  in  Italy,  centuries  before  Bacon  or  Shake- 
speare could  write  it.  The  writer  of  the  tragedy  took 
all  its  principal  personages,  and  their  names  with  them, 
from  the  old  poem,  and  he  would  not  have  thought  of 
such  a  thing  as  changing  the  name  of  its  hero.  He 
chose  his  plot  because  it  was  that  of  the  old  popular 
story  of  the  sad  fate  of  the  two  lovers,  —  Romeo  of 
the  Montagues  and  Juliet  of  the  Capulets,  —  with 
which  he  wished  to  please  his  audience  by  putting  it 
before  them  in  a  dramatic  form.  There  was  no  occa- 
sion for  a  hint  as  to  the  name  of  the  bridegroom  ;  he 
had  been  baptized  long  before. 

It  seems  very  strange  to  be  obliged  to  treat  such 
fancies  even  with  a  semblance  of  respect ;  but  these 
are  characteristic  of  the  methods  by  which  this  foolish 
fuss  is  kept  up  and  is  pressed  upon  the  attention  of 
the  uninformed,  or  the  more  easily  deceived,  half-in- 
formed, as  if  it  were  a  serious  literary  question. 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  175 

As  to  this  "  Promus  "  memorandum  "  rome,"  if  it 
has  any  connection  with  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  which 
is  not  at  all  probable,  it  may  possibly  be  of  this  na- 
ture :  The  Italian  pronunciation  of  Romeo  is  Romeo ; 
but  Brooke,  in  his  poem  "  Romeus  and  Juliet,"  pub- 
lished in  1562  (and  consequently  Shakespeare  in  his 
tragedy),  accented  it  upon  the  first  syllable,  whether 
in  the  Latin  or  the  Italian  form,  as  will  appear  by 
the  following  passage  :  — 

Fayre  Juliet  tourned  to  her  chayre  with  plesaunt  cheere, 
And  glad  she  was  her  Humeus  approched  was  so  neere. 
At  thone  side  of  her  chayre  her  lover  Romeo 
And  on  the  other  syde  there  sat  one  cald  Mercutio. 

The  distortions  of  proper  names,  in  this  manner,  by 
English  writers  of  the  Elizabethan  period  are  mon- 
strous and  ridiculous.  For  example,  Robert  Greene, 
a  university  scholar,  not  only  deprives  poor  Iphigenia 
entirely  of  the  ei  in  her  name,  I^ty^veia,  but  actually 
pronounces  it  Xf-fig-in-ay :  — 

You  '11  curse  the  hour  wherein  you  did  denay 
To  join  Alphonsus  with  Jphigena. 


And  so  by  marriage  of  Iphigena 

You  soon  shall  drive  the  danger  clear  away. 

Alphonsus,  Act  III. 

Now  it  is  just  not  impossible  that  Bacon,  having  read 
Brooke's  poem,  or  seen  Shakespeare's  play,  made  a 
memorandum,  imperfect  and  obscure,  as  to  either  the 
proper  pronunciation,  or  the  customary  English  mis- 
pronunciation of  the  e  in  Romeo  ;  but,  nevertheless, 
we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  his  "  rome  "had  no  more 
to  do  with  Romeo  than  his  "good  morrow"  with  the 
appearance  of  that  phrase  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  or 
its  use  by  English  people. 


176  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

To  one  stumbling-block  in  the  path  of  the  Bacon- 
Shakespeare  theorists  they  seem  to  be  quite  blind,  — 
the  "  Sonnets."  They  busy  themselves  with  Bacon's 
writings,  with  the  plays,  and  the  concordance ;  and 
with  their  eyes  fixed  upon  the  one  point  which  they 
hope  to  attain,  these  headlong  literary  steeple-chasers, 
with  their  noses  in  the  air,  look  right  over  this  obsta- 
cle, which  is  one  of  many,  each  one  of  which  would 
bring  them  to  the  ground.  They  have  little  to  say 
about  it ;  and  what  they  do  say  is  not  all  to  the  pur- 
pose. If  there  is  one  fact  in  literary  history  which, 
upon  moral  grounds,  and  upon  internal  and  external 
evidence,  is  as  certain  as  any  recorded  fact  in  general 
history,  or  as  any  demonstrated  mathematical  propo- 
sition, it  is  that  the  writer  of  the  plays  was  also  the 
writer  of  the  sonnets,  both  of  which  bear  the  name  of 
Shakespeare.  In  spirit,  in  manner,  and  in  the  use  of 
language,  their  likeness  is  so  absolute  that  if  either 
one  of  the  two  groups  had  been  published  anony- 
mously, there  would  have  been  no  room  for  doubt  that 
it  was  by  the  writer  of  the  other.  Now  the  sonnets, 
or  a  considerable  number  of  them,  had  been  written 
before  the  year  1597 ;  for,  as  all  students  of  the  lit- 
erature of  the  period  know,  they  are  mentioned  by 
Francis  Meres  in  his  "Palladia  Tamia,"  which  was 
published  in  1598.  They  were  not  then  published  ; 
they  were  not  written  for  the  public,  as  Meres  tells 
us  ;  they  were  not  printed  until  eleven  years  after- 
wards, when  they  were  procured  for  publication  in 
some  surreptitious  or  ^wcm-surreptitious  way.  Meres 
mentions  them  as  Shakespeare's  "  sugred  sonnets 
among  his  private  friends."  Now,  if  Bacon  wrote 
the  plays,  he  also  wrote  the  sonnets :  and  consequently 
we  must  believe  that  the  lawyer,  philosopher,  and 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CRAZE.  177 

statesman,  who  at  twenty-six  years  of  age  had  planned 
his  great  system  of  inductive  investigation,  who  never 
took  his  eye  from  that  grand  purpose,  who  was  strug- 
gling with  unpropitious  fortune,  who  was  a  ceaseless 
place-hunter,  who  had  difficulty  in  procuring  the  means 
of  living  in  modest  conformity  to  his  position  as  a  gen- 
tleman of  good  birth  and  high  connection,  who  was  a 
hard-working  barrister  conducting  great  public  as  well 
as  private  causes,  an  active  member  of  Parliament 
and  a  scheming,  if  not  an  intriguing,  courtier,  occu- 
pied himself,  not  only  in  writing  plays,  for  which  he 
might  have  got  a  little  (for  one  like  him  a  very  little) 
money,  but  in  writing  fanciful  sonnets,  —  not  an  occa- 
sional sonnet  or  two,  but  one  hundred  and  fifty-four 
sonnets,  more  than  Wordsworth  bestowed  upon  the 
world,  —  which  were  not  to  be  published  or  put  to  any 
profitable  use,  but  which  he  gave  to  an  actor,  to  be 
handed  about  as  his  own  among  his  private  friends, 
for  their  delectation  and  his  own  glory.  This  Bacon 
did,  or  he  did  not  write  the  plays.  That  he  did  so  is 
morally  impossible  ;  and  indeed  the  supposition  that 
he  could  have  done  so  is  too  monstrously  absurd  to 
merit  this  serious  examination  of  its  possibility.  Be- 
sides all  which,  there  are  many  of  these  sonnets,  and 
they  by  no  means  the  least  meritorious  or  the  least 
characteristic  of  them,  that  are  of  such  a  nature 
in  their  subjects  and  their  language  and  their  allu- 
sions that  any  one  at  all  acquainted  with  Bacon's 
tastes  or  his  moral  nature  would  hesitate  at  accept- 
ing them,  would  revolt  from  accepting  them,  as  his, 
even  upon  positive  and  direct  testimony.  Bacon  cer- 
tainly did  not  write  the  sonnets;  and  therefore,  as 
certainly,  he  did  not  write  the  plays.  (It  shames  me 
to  seem  to  rest  such  a  decision  upon  a  formula  of 
12 


178  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

grave  and  sober  reasoning.)    There  is  no  visible  avoid- 
ance of  this  conclusion. 

And  now  we  are  face  to  face  with  what  is,  after  all, 
the  great  inherent  absurdity  (as  distinguished  from 
evidence  and  external  conditions)  of  this  fantastical 
notion,  —  the  unlikeness  of  Bacon's  mind  and  of  his 
style  to  those  of  the  writer  of  the  plays.  Among  all 
the  men  of  that  brilliant  period  who  stand  forth  in 
the  blaze  of  its  light  with  sufficient  distinction  for 
us  at  this  time  to  know  anything  of  them,  no  two 
were  so  elementally  unlike  in  their  mental  and  moral 
traits  and  in  their  literary  habits  as  Francis  Bacon 
and  William  Shakespeare  ;  and  each  of  them  stamped 
his  individuality  unmistakably  upon  his  work.  Both 
were  thinkers  of  the  highest  order ;  both,  what  we 
somewhat  loosely  call  philosophers :  but  how  different 
their  philosophy,  how  divergent  their  ways  of  thought, 
and  how  notably  unlike  their  modes  of  expression ! 
Bacon,  a  cautious  observer  and  investigator,  ever  look- 
ing at  men  and  things  through  the  dry  light  of  cool 
reason  ;  Shakespeare,  glowing  with  instant  inspiration, 
seeing  by  intuition  the  thing  before  him,  outside  and 
inside,  body  and  spirit,  as  it  was,  yet  moulding  it  as  it 
was  to  his  immediate  need,  —  finding  in  it  merely  an 
occasion  of  present  thought,  and  regardless  of  it  ex- 
cept as  a  stimulus  to  his  fancy  and  his  imagination  : 
Bacon,  a  logician ;  Shakespeare,  one  who  set  logic  at 
naught,  and  soared  upon  wings  compared  with  which 
syllogisms  are  crutches:  Bacon,  who  sought,  in  the 
phrase  of  Saul  of  Tarsus,  —  that  Shakespeare  of 
Christianity, — to  prove  all  things,  and  to  hold  fast 
that  which  is  good ;  Shakespeare,  one  who,  like  Saul, 
loosed  upon  the  world  winged  phrases,  but  who  recked 
not  his  own  rede,  proved  nothing,  and  held  fast  both 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CRAZE.  179 

to  good  and  evil,  delighting  in  his  Falstaff  as  much 
as  he  delighted  in  his  Imogen :  Bacon,  in  his  writing 
the  most  self-asserting  of  men ;  Shakespeare,  one  who 
when  he  wrote  his  plays  did  not  seem  to  have  a  self : 
Bacon,  the  most  cautions  and  painstaking,  the  most 
consistent  and  exact,  of  writers ;  Shakespeare,  the 
most  heedless,  the  most  inconsistent,  the  most  inexact, 
of  all  writers  who  have  risen  to  fame  :  Bacon,  sweet 
sometimes,  sound  always,  but  dry,  stiff,  and  formal ; 
Shakespeare,  unsavory  sometimes,  but  oftenest  breath- 
ing perfume  from  Paradise,  grand,  large,  free,  flowing, 
flexible,  unconscious,  and  incapable  of  formality :  Ba- 
con, precise  and  reserved  in  expression  ;  Shakespeare, 
a  player  and  quibbler  with  words,  often  swept  away 
by  his  own  verbal  conceits  into  intellectual  paradox, 
and  almost  into  moral  obliquity  :  Bacon,  without  hu- 
mor ;  Shakespeare's  smiling  lips  the  mouthpiece  of 
humor  for  all  human  kind :  Bacon,  looking  at  the 
world  before  him  and  at  the  teaching  of  past  ages  with 
a  single  eye  to  his  theories  and  his  individual  pur- 
poses ;  Shakespeare,  finding  in  the  wisdom  and  the 
folly,  the  woes  and  the  pleasures,  of  the  past  and  the 
present  merely  the  means  of  giving  pleasure  to  others 
and  getting  money  for  himself,  and  rising  to  his  height 
as  a  poet  and  a  moral  teacher  only  by  his  sensitive  in- 
tellectual sympathy  with  all  the  needs  and  joys  and  sor- 
rows of  humanity :  Bacon,  shrinking  from  a  generali- 
zation even  in  morals  ;  Shakespeare,  ever  moralizing, 
and  dealing  even  with  individual  men  and  particular 
things  in  their  general  relations  :  both  worldly-wise, 
both  men  of  the  world,  —  for  both  these  master  intel- 
lects of  the  Christian  era  were  worldly-minded  men  in 
the  thorough  Bunyan  sense  of  the  term :  but  the  one 
using  his  knowledge  of  men  and  things  critically  in 


180  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

philosophy  and  in  affairs  ;  the  other,  his  synthetically, 
as  a  creative  artist:  Bacon,  a  highly  trained  mind, 
and  showing  his  training  at  every  step  of  his  cautions, 
steady  march ;  Shakespeare,  wholly  untrained,  and 
showing  his  want  of  training  even  in  the  highest  reach 
of  his  soaring  flight :  Bacon,  utterly  without  the  poetic 
faculty  even  in  a  secondary  degree,  as  is  most  appar- 
ent when  he  desires  to  show  the  contrary;  Shake- 
speare, rising  with  unconscious  effort  to  the  highest 
heaven  of  poetry  ever  reached  by  the  human  mind. 
To  suppose  that  one  of  these  men  did  his  own  work 
and  also  the  work  of  the  other  is  to  assume  two  mira- 
cles for  the  sake  of  proving  one  absurdity,  and  to 
shrink  from  accepting  in  the  untaught  son  of  the 
Stratford  yeoman  a  miraculous  miracle,  one  that  does 
not  defy  or  suspend  the  laws  of  nature. 

Many  readers  of  these  pages  probably  know  that 
this  notion  that  our  Shakespeare,  the  Shakespeare  of 
"  As  You  Like  It "  and  "  Hamlet "  and  "  King  Lear," 
was  Francis  Bacon  masking  in  the  guise  of  a  player  at 
the  Globe  Theatre  is  not  of  very  recent  origin.  It 
was  first  brought  before  the  public  by  Miss  Delia  Ba- 
con (who  afterwards  deployed  her  theory  in  a  ponder- 
ous volume,  with  an  introduction  by  Nathaniel  Haw- 
thorne, —  who  did  not  advocate  it)  in  an  article  in 
"  Putnam's  Magazine  "  for  January,  1856.  Some  time 
before  that  article  was  published,  and  shortly  after  the 
publication  of  "  Shakespeare's  Scholar,"  it  was  sent 
to  me  in  proof  by  the  late  Mr.  George  P.  Putnam, 
with  a  letter  calling  my  attention  to  its  importance, 
and  a  request  that  I  would  write  an  introduction  to  it. 
After  reading  it  carefully  and  without  prejudice  (for 
I  knew  nothing  of  the  theory,  or  of  its  author,  and,  as 
I  have  already  said,  I  am  perfectly  indifferent  as  to  the 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE    CRAZE.  181 

name  and  the  personality  of  the  writer  of  the  plays, 
and  had  as  lief  it  should  have  been  Francis  Bacon  as 
William  Shakespeare)  I  returned  the  article  to  Mr. 
Putnam,  declining  the  proposed  honor  of  introducing  it 
to  the  public,  and  adding  that,  as  the  writer  was  plainly 
neither  a  fool  nor  an  ignoramus,  she  must  be  insane ; 
not  a  maniac,  but  what  boys  call  "loony."  So  it 
proved :  she  died  a  lunatic,  and  I  believe  in  a  lunatic 
asylum. 

I  record  this  incident  for  the  first  time  on  this  occa- 
sion, not  at  all  in  the  spirit  of  I-told-you-so,  but  mere- 
ly as  a  fitting  preliminary  to  the  declaration  that  this 
Bacon -Shakespeare  notion  is  an  infatuation  ;  a  literary 
bee  in  the  bonnets  of  certain  ladies  of  both  sexes,  which 
should  make  them  the  objects  of  tender  care  and  sym- 
pathy. It  will  not  be  extinguished  at  once  ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  may  become  a  mental  epidemic.  For 
there  is  no  notion,  no  fancy  or  folly,  which  may  not 
be  developed  into  a  "movement,"  or  even  into  a 
"  school,"  by  iteration  and  agitation.  I  do  not  despair 
of  seeing  a  Bacon- Shakespeare  Society,  with  an  array 
of  vice-presidents  of  both  sexes,  that  may  make  the 
New  Shakspere  Society  look  to  its  laurels.  None  the 
less,  however,  is  it  a  lunacy,  which  should  be  treated 
with  all  the  the  skill  and  tenderness  which  modern  med- 
ical science  and  humanity  have  developed.  Proper  re- 
treats should  be  provided,  and  ambulances  kept  ready, 
with  horses  harnessed ;  and  when  symptoms  of  the 
Bacon-Shakespeare  craze  manifest  themselves,  the  pa- 
tient should  be  immediately  carried  off  to  the  asylum, 
furnished  with  pens,  ink,  and  paper,  a  copy  of  Bacon's 
works,  one  of  the  Shakespeare  plays,  and  one  of  Mrs. 
Cowden-Clarke's  Concordance  (and  that  good  lady  is 
largely  responsible  for  the  development  of  this  harm- 


182  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

less  mental  disease,  and  other  "  fads "  called  Shake- 
spearean) ;  and  the  literary  results,  which  would  be 
copious,  should  be  received  for  publication  with  defer- 
ential respect,  and  then  —  committed  to  the  flames. 
In  this  way  the  innocent  victims  of  the  malady  might 
be  soothed  and  tranquillized,  and  the  world  protected 
against  the  debilitating  influence  of  tomes  of  tedious 
twaddle. 

As  to  treating  the  question  seriously,  that  is  not  to 
be  done  by  men  of  common  sense  and  moderate  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject.  Even  the  present  not  very  seri- 
ious,  or,  I  fear,  sufficiently  considerate,  examination 
of  it  (to  which  I  was  not  very  ready,1  but  much  the 
contrary)  provokes  me  to  say  almost  with  Henry  Per- 
cy's words,  that  I  could  divide  myself  and  go  to  buf- 
fets for  being  moved  by  such  a  dish  of  skimmed  milk 
to  so  honorable  an  action.  It  is  as  certain  that  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare  wrote  (after  the  theatrical  fashion 
and  under  the  theatrical  conditions  of  his  day)  the 
plays  which  bear  his  name  as  it  is  that  Francis  Bacon 
wrote  the  "  Novum  Organum,"  the  "  Advancement  of 
Learning,"  and  the  "  Essays."  We  know  this  as  well 
as  we  know  any  fact  in  history.  The  notion  that  Ba- 
con also  wrote  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  "  The  Comedy  of 
Errors,"  "  Hamlet,"  "King  Lear,"  and  "Othello  "  is 
not  worth  five  minutes'  serious  consideration  by  any 
reasonable  creature. 

1  As  the  editor  of  The  Atlantic  Monthly  will  bear  witness. 


KING  LEAK.1 

I.  THE  TEXT. 

MR.  HORACE  HOWARD  FURNESS  —  who,  although 
he  is  doubly  a  doctor,  can  afford  to  be  spoken  of  as  if 
he  were  only  a  gentlemen  —  has  added  a  fourth  play 
and  a  fifth  volume  to  the  new  variorum  edition  of 
Shakespeare's  works  which  he  has  begun,  and  which 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  he  will  have  the  health,  the  en- 
durance, and  the  perseverance  to  complete.  The  plays 
which  he  has  heretofore  given  us  are  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  "Macbeth,"  and  "Hamlet."  The  scale  on 
which  he  works  is  so  grand  that  the  first  and  the  sec- 
ond of  these  plays  fill,  each  of  them,  with  their  various 
readings,  notes,  and  commentaries,  a  large  octavo  vol- 
ume, while  for  "  Hamlet "  two  such  volumes  are  re- 
quired. The  fifth  volume,  now  before  us,  contains 
"  King  Lear." 

A  variorum  edition  of  a  great  writer  is  so  called, 
as  most  of  the  readers  of  these  pages  probably  know, 
because  it  presents,  with  his  text,  all  of  the  work  of 
his  various  editors  and  commentators  which  in  the 
judgment  of  the  variorum  editor  is  necessary  to  a 
critical  study  of  that  text,  and  all  the  various  read- 
ings of  all  previous  editions  which  are  of  any  au- 
thority or  interest.  Thus,  as  Mr.  Furness  remarks 
in  his  preface  to  the  present  volume,  "  the  attempt  is 

1A  New  Variorum  Edition  of  Shakespeare.  Edited  by  Horace  Howard 
Furness,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D.  Vol.  V.  King  Lear.  Philadelphia  :  J.  B.  Lip- 
pincott  &  Co.  1880. 


184  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

here  made  to  present  on  the  same  page  with  the  text 
all  the  various  readings  of  the  different  editions  of 
'King  Lear,'  from  the  earliest  quarto  to  the  latest 
critical  edition  of  the  play,  together  with  all  the 
notes  and  comments  thereon  which  the  editor  has 
thought  worthy  of  preservation,  not  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  elucidating  the  text,  but  at  times  as  illustra- 
tions of  the  history  of  Shakespearean  criticism ;  "  and 
yet  to  this  there  are  added,  in  the  appendix,  essays  on 
the  text,  on  the  date  of  the  composition  of  the  play, 
on  the  source  of  the  plot,  the  duration  of  the  action, 
the  insanity  of  Lear,  the  great  actors  of  the  principal 
part,  and  the  costume  of  the  play,  Tate's  version  of 
it,  selections  from  English  and  German  criticisms  of 
it,  and  its  bibliography,  —  a  work  the  magnitude,  we 
might  almost  say  the  enormity,  of  which  can  be  ap- 
preciated only  by  those  who  have  some  practical  ac- 
quaintance with  such  labors. 

There  have  been  several  variorum  editions  of  Shake- 
speare's plays.  Indeed,  as  every  editor  has  almost  of 
necessity  availed  himself  of  the  labors  of  all  of  his 
predecessors  and  quoted  them,  every  amply  critical 
edition  has  been  more  or  less  a  variorum ;  but  the  only 
editions  which  have  really  this  character  in  any  ap- 
proach to  completeness  are  those  known  as  Johnson 
and  Steevens's,  1785,  in  ten  volumes  ;  Malone's,  1790, 
in  ten  volumes  ;  Reid  and  Steevens's,  1813,  in  twenty- 
one  volumes ;  and  Boswell's  Malone,  1821,  also  in 
twenty-one  volumes.  The  great  Cambridge  edition,  by 
William  George  Clark  and  W.  Aldis  Wright,  in  nine 
volumes,  is  a  complete  variorum  as  to  readings,  but 
not  as  to  notes  and  comments.  Of  these  Boswell's 
Malone  is  the  standard  variorum,  and  is  always  meant 
by  editors  and  commentators  when  they  cite  "the 


KING  LEAR.  185 

Variorum."  That  of  Reid  and  Steevens  is  some- 
times cited  as  "the  variorum  of  1813."  But  even  the 
former  of  these  does  not  approach  Mr.  Furness's  work 
in  the  vastness  of  its  plan,  or  in  its  systematic  arrange- 
ment, or  in  the  thoroughness  of  its  execution.  And 
the  activity  of  Shakespearean  criticism  between  1821 
and  1880,  and  the  searching  and  almost  scientific 
study  of  the  English  language  and  its  literature  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty-five  years,  have  resulted  in  the  ac- 
cumulation of  a  mass  of  critical  material  upon  this 
subject  since  Malone's  time  which  makes  a  new  va- 
riorum edition  of  Shakespeare  almost  a  literary  neces- 
sity of  the  day.  It  is  to  the  honor  of  the  American! 
branch  of  English  literature  that  the  labor  of  supply- 
ing this  need  has  been  undertaken  by  one  of  our 
scholars  and  critics ;  and  still  more  to  its  honor  that 
this  labor  has  been  performed  thus  far  with  the  wide 
range  of  knowledge,  the  acumen,  the  judgment,  the 
taste,  and,  it  may  well  be  added,  the  invariable  good 
temper  which  are  displayed  by  Mr.  Furness. 

To  the  general  reader  it  may  seem  that  the  poet  is 
editorially  overlaid  in  this  great  edition.  The  text  of 
"  Hamlet "  may  be  printed  in  large  type  on  sixty  or 
seventy  duodecimo  pages ;  and  indeed  it  was  origi- 
nally published  in  a  small  quarto  pamphlet  of  that 
size.  In  the  new  variorum,  Hamlet  fills  two  ponder- 
ous octavo  volumes.  But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
the  purpose  of  a  variorum  editor  is  not  to  produce  a 
pocket  edition  of  his  author  for  popular  use.  It  is 
not  supposed  that  any  one  who  wishes  to  take  "  Ham- 
let "  with  him  on  a  summer  excursion  will  put  the 
new  variorum  edition  into  his  travelling-bag,  —  or  the 
old  variorum,  for  that  matter.  Boswell's  Malone's 
Shakespeare  was  quite  as  much  overlaid  for  its  time 


186  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

as  Furness's  is ;  and  even  more,  for  it  was  filled  with 
rubbish  which  subsequent  editors  have  swept  into  the 
dust-bin.  A  variorum  edition  professes  to  give  what 
is  necessary  for  the  critical  study  of  its  author,  and 
even,  as  Mr.  Furness  says,  to  illustrate  the  history  of 
the  critical  literature  of  which  he  is  the  source  and  the 
subject.  The  doing  of  this  involves  the  preservation 
of  much  which  is,  in  the  judgment  of  the  variorum 
editor  himself,  of  little  intrinsic  value. 

It  is  easy  to  laugh  and  sneer  at  the  editors  and 
commentators  of  Shakespeare;  and  some  of  them, 
in  their  dulness  of  apprehension  no  less  than  in  the 
voluminous  superfluity  and  feeble  triviality  of  their 
criticism,  are  indeed  "fixed  figures  for  the  time  of 
scorn  to  point  his  slow  unmoving  finger  at."  But 
not  a  little  of  the  scoffing  to  which  they  as  a  class 
have  been  subjected  is  the  mere  effervescence  of  the 
ignorance  of  the  scoffers,  which  with  some  folk  is 
a  very  sparkling  quality.  Many  even  of  those  who 
read  and  enjoy  Shakespeare  talk  of  being  content 
with  "  the  text "  itself  without  note  or  comment.  But 
what  text?  Such  objections  to  editorial  labor  on 
Shakespeare  can  be  made  by  candid  and  intelligent 
persons  only  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  state  in  which 
the  text  of  Shakespeare's  plays  has  come  down  to  us. 
The  "text  of  Shakespeare,"  when  thus  spoken  of, 
means  merely  the  text  which  the  speakers  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  reading.  But  that  very  text,  they 
may  be  sure,  is  the  result  of  the  painful  labors, 
through  many  generations,  of  the  very  editors  of 
whom  they  speak  so  slightingly. 

Shakespeare  did  not  publish  his  plays  himself  and 
read  the  proofs  with  the  assistance  of  a  good  corrector 
of  the  press.  Would  that  he  had  done  so !  They 


KING  LEAR.  187 

were,  some  of  them,  obtained  by  their  first  publishers 
surreptitiously ;  they  were  printed  from  imperfect 
manuscripts,  or  from  mutilated  stage  copies ;  and 
then  they  were  printed  with  less  care  than  is  now 
given  to  the  printing  of  a  handbill.  The  very  edition 
issued  by  his  fellow-actors  after  his  death,  the  great 
First  Folio,  1623,  a  perfect  copy  of  which  is  worth 
twenty-five  hundred  dollars  and  upwards,  is  incomplete 
and  full  of  errors.  The  first  edition  of  u  Hamlet," 
1603,  is  in  many  passages  absolutely  unreadable,  and 
is  in  fact  an  absurd  jumble  of  what  Shakespeare  wrote. 
The  "  authentic  "  edition  of  1623,  besides  being  full 
of  perplexing  errors  of  the  press,  is  very  incomplete. 
If  the  text  of  Shakespeare  were  put  before  these 
captious  amateur  critics  uncorrected  by  editorial 
labor  and  without  comment,  they  would  not  recog- 
nize many  parts  of  it ;  they  would  not  believe  that  it 
was  "  Shakespeare,  "  —  and  they  would  be  right ;  and 
besides  this,  in  numberless  passages  in  which  they 
would  really  have  "  Shakespeare  "  they  would  be  un- 
able to  understand  him. 

The  truth  upon  this  point  is  that  the  text  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  has  come  down  to  us  from  his  own  time 
with  such  imperfection  and  such  variety  of  presenta- 
tion that  to  form  it  into  a  self-consistent  whole  re- 
quires a  degree  of  scholarship  and  of  critical  acumen 
beyond  that  required  by  the  text  of  any  other  great 
poet  of  the  past,  excepting  Homer,  whose  poems  lived 
only  in  the  mouths  of  rhapsodists  and  in  the  memory 
of  hearers  for  hundreds  of  years  before  they  were  put 
upon  paper.  As  to  Shakespeare's  writings,  there  is 
such  variety  of  authority  in  regard  to  them  and  the 
authority  is  so  conflicting  in  many  cases,  they  are  so 
lame  and  mutilated  in  every  "  authoritative  "  form, 
that  they  are  just  in  the  condition  to  need  and  to  pro- 


188  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

voke  the  most  careful  critical  recension  of  the  most 
capable  scholarship.  If  their  condition  had  been  con- 
trived by  some  malicious  spirit  for  this  very  purpose, 
it  could  not  have  been  better  adapted  to  that  end. 
And  then,  the  writings  which  exist  in  this  deplorable 
state  are  the  crown  of  all  literature  and  the  glory  of 
the  English  race.  What  wonder  that  Shakespeare 
has  editors  and  commentators  !  That  some  of  these 
have  been  men  whose  feebleness  of  intellect  has  been 
equalled  in  degree  only  by  their  presumption  does  not 
essentially  affect  this  question. 

Let  us  look  at  a  few  passages  of  "  King  Lear  "  in 
the  light  of  these  remarks,  which  must  seem  trite  to 
persons  who  have  a  moderate  acquaintance  at  first 
hand  with  the  subject. 

In  the  very  first  scene,  and  in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
lines  of  that  scene,  we  find  this  discrepancy  between 
the  "  authorities."  One  of  them  has,  "  for  equalities 
are  so  weighed  that  curiosity  in  nature  can  make  choice 
of  cither's  moiety ; "  while  the  other  reads,  "  that 
curiosity  in  neither  can  make  choice,"  etc.  Which  of 
these  is  the  text  of  Shakespeare  ?  The  latter,  which 
is  the  reading  of  the  folio  of  1623,  has  been  generally 
and  finally  accepted ;  but  much  might  be  said  in  favor 
of  "  curiosity  in  nature."  And  then  what  does  "  curi- 
osity in  neither"  mean?  It  might  puzzle  some  of  the 
carpers  at  Shakespearean  editing  to  tell.  This,  merely 
by  way  of  showing  how  soon  we  come  upon  a  stumbling- 
block  in  "  the  text  of  Shakespeare."  And  it  may  be 
not  without  interest  to  my  readers  for  me  to  point 
out  what  I  believe  to  be  the  origin  of  this  particular 
variation  between  the  texts  of  the  two  old  editions, 
which  has  never  been  done  —  an  omission  that  seems 
remarkable.  It  is  due,  I  am  sure,  to  what  is  called  a 
misprint  by  the  ear. 


KING  LEAR.  189 

Except  in  extraordinary  cases,  compositors  put 
words  in  type,  not  letters ;  and  a  skilful  and  practised 
compositor  will  sometimes  set  up  a  phrase  of  a  dozen 
words,  or  of  a  score,  without  referring  to  his  copy. 
Manifestly,  therefore,  he  spells  with  his  type  the  sound 
that  he  has  in  his  mind.  Now  in  Shakespeare's  time 
the  sounds  of  nature  and  neither  were  almost  identi- 
cal. The  first  syllable  of  neither  was  pronounced  nay, 
and  iti  had  the  sound  of  dth  (and  sometimes  even  of 
d  and  £),  as  we.  now  hear  it  sounded  by  Irish  speakers 
of  English. 1  Whether,  therefore,  the  compositor  in 
this  instance  had  nature  or  neither  before  his  eyes,  he 
had  in  his  mind's  ear  the  one,  or  nearly  one,  sound 
with  which  an  Irishman  utters  both  words.  This 
cause  of  confusion  was  aggravated,  if  the  text  of  the 
quarto  in  which  "  nature  "  appears  was  taken  down, 
as  it  may  have  been,  from  a  recital  of  the  scene. 
Misprints  and  miswritings  by  the  ear  were  the  cause 
of  not  a  little  confusion  in  the  old  texts  of  Shake- 
speare. 

And  what  does  Regan  mean  when,  according  to  the 
text  of  1623,  which  Mr.  Furness  adopts,  she  says  to 
her  father, 

I  profess 

Myself  an  enemy  to  all  other  joys 
Which  the  most  precious  square  of  sense  professes. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

What  is  a  precious  square  ?  What  is  a  square  of 
sense  ?  How  can  a  square  of  sense  profess  ?  As  to 
the  last  point,  it  seems  to  me  clear  that  the  text  of  the 
folio  of  1623  here  furnishes  an  example  of  another 
sort  of  misprint,  —  the  misprint  by  repetition.  If  a 

1  See  my  "Memorandums  of  English  Pronunciation  in  the  Elizabethan 
Era,"  vol.  xii.  of  my  first  edition  of  Shakespeare  ;  aiso  the  "Irish  Pro- 
nunciation "  in  chap.  V.  of  Every-Day  English,  published  by  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co. 


190  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

man  has  spoken  or  written  a  word  once,  such  is  the 
action  of  the  mind  that  he  is  likely,  even  without  rea- 
son, to  repeat  it ;  and  this  likelihood  is  much  greater 
if  the  word  is  suggested  by  kindred  thought  or  a  like 
form  in  another  word.  Hence  compositors  sometimes 
repeat  words  which  they  have  just  put  in  type ;  and 
hence  in  this  case  I  am  sure  the  compositor  repeated 
profess^  although  he  had  possesses  before  his  eyes. 
The  quarto  has,  "  Which  the  most  precious  square  of 
sense  possesses."  But  this  still  leaves  us  with  the 
precious  square  of  sense  upon  our  hands.  What  can 
it  mean  ?  Let  us  see  how  some  of  the  ablest  of  Shake- 
speare's editors  and  commentators  have  explained  it. 

Warburton  said  that  "  square  of  sense  "  refers  to  "  the 
four  nobler  senses,  sight,  hearing,  taste,  and  smell." 
Dr.  Johnson  said,  "  Perhaps  square  means  only  com- 
pass, comprehension."  Hudson  accepts  the  whole 
phrase  as  meaning  "  fullness  or  wealth  of  sensibility 
or  capacity  of  joy."  Aldis  Wright's  explanation  is 
"  that  which  the  most  delicately  sensitive  point  of  my 
nature  is  capable  of  enjoying."  The  erudite  German 
scholar,  Dr.  Schmidt,  who  has  undertaken  to  instruct 
us  in  the  meaning  of  Shakespeare's  words,  says  that 
the  phrase  means  "  choicest  symmetry  of  reason,  the 
most  normal  and  intelligent  mode  of  thinking  ;  "  thus 
producing  the  most  extravagant  and  far-fetched  and 
would-be-profound-seeming  of  all  these  somewhat  over- 
subtle  and  very  unlike  explanations.  Certainly  the 
variety  of  sense  extracted  from  these  four  words  is 
remarkable.  But  does  any  one  of  these  paraphrases 
satisfy  the  intelligent  Shakespeare  lover  whose  mind 
is  clear  and  unmuddled  by  the  study  of  various  read- 
ings, —  the  most  distracting  and  bewildering  of  all 
mental  occupations,  one  which  I  sometimes  think  (and 


KING   LEAR.  191 

perhaps  my  readers  may  think)  tends  to  idiocy?  I 
will  venture  to  say  that  it  does  not.  Hence  it  has 
been  supposed  to  be  corrupted,  and  "  precious  sphere 
of  sense,"  "  spacious  sphere  of  sense,"  "  spacious 
square  of  sense,"  and  even  "  precious  treasure  of 
sense  "  have  been  proposed  as  readings.  I  fear  that 
it  must  be  left  as  it  stands,  with  the  humble  confes- 
sion that  it  is  a  dark  saying. 

And  what  are  we  to  make  of  Cordelia's  entreaty  to 
her  father  when  she  says,  according  to  both  the  old 
authorities, 

I  yet  beseech  your  majesty,  — 

—  that  you  make  known 
It  is  no  vicious  blot,  murther,  or  foulness, 
No  unchaste  action  or  dishonour' d  step, 
That  hath  depriv'd  me  of  your  grace  and  favour. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Were  young  princesses  then  so  apt  to  commit  murder 
that  it  was  enumerated  as  a  matter  of  course  among 
the  slips  to  which  they  were  liable?  Or  was  the  gen- 
tle, loving,  self-sacrificing  Cordelia  an  exception  in 
this  respect  in  the  eyes  of  her  doting  father  —  a  mur- 
deress by  distinction?  The  case  is  very  perplexing. 
Hence  the  corrector  of  the  Collier  folio  read  "  no 
vicious  blot  nor  other  foulness,"  Mr.  Collier  remark- 
ing that  "  the  copyist  or  the  compositor  miswrote  or 
misread  no  other  '  murther ; ' "  and  the  change  was  ac- 
cepted by  some  editors  with  great  expression  of  relief 
and  satisfaction.  Walker,  that  much  overrated  com- 
mentator, —  overrated  because  of  the  impression  which 
a  formal,  systematic  arrangement  produces  on  many 
minds,  —  declared  without  hesitation  that  we  should 
read,  "  It  is  no  vicious  blot,  umber,  or  foulness ; "  an 
emendation  so  feeble,  far-fetched,  and  foolish  that  it 
might  have  been  made  by  Zachary  Jackson.  Keight- 


192  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

ly  would  read,  "  no  vicious  blot,  misdeed,  or  foulness," 
which  is  well  enough  in  itself ;  but  why  not  read  any- 
thing else  with  an  m  in  it  as  well  as  misdeed  ?  Against 
the  Collier  reading  "  nor  other  foulness,"  it  is  to  be 
objected,  first,  that  the  suggestion  of  a  misprint  of 
murther  for  no  other,  although  plausible  as  to  the 
folio,  does  not  touch  the  quarto,  where  we  not  only 
also  have  murder,  but  find  it  spelled  with  a  d  ;  next, 
and  more  important,  vicious  blot  and  foulness  are  so 
nearly  the  same  in  meaning,  so  absolutely  the  same  in 
turpitude,  that  even  a  writer  far  inferior  to  Shake- 
speare would  not  make  the  latter  alternative  to  the 
former.  But  finally  comes  Hudson,  and  says  with  that 
fine  insight  which  he  often  shows,  "  I  suspect  that  Cor- 
delia purposely  uses  murder  out  of  place,  as  a  glance 
at  the  hyperbolical  absurdity  of  denouncing  her  as  '  a 
wretch  whom  nature  is  ashamed  to  acknowledge.' ' 
Cordelia  has  a  touch  of  demure  satire  in  her  composi- 
tion, and  this  is  the  only  explanation  which  seems  to 
me  at  all  suitable,  although  I  cannot  regard  it  as  sat- 
isfactory. 

In  the  second  scene  of  Act  II.,  Kent,  according  to 
the  earliest  authority,  the  quarto,  says  of  Oswald,  the 
f opling  villain  whom  he  instinctively  so  hates,  — 

Such  smiling  rogues  as  these, 
Like  rats,  oft  bite  the  holy  cords  a-twain 
Which  are  too  intrench  t'  unloose; 

but  the  folio  reads,  "  Which  are  t'  intrence  t'  unloose." 
Which  is  the  text  of  Shakespeare,  and  what  does 
either  reading  mean?  No  one  could  answer  either 
question  until  it  occurred  to  a  learned  and  acute  com- 
mentator of  the  last  century,  named  Upton,  that  in- 
trence of  the  folio  was  a  misprint  for  intrinse,  a  short 
form  of  intrinsecate,  like  reverb  for  reverberate  ;  in- 


KING^LEAB.  193 

trinsecate  being  an  Anglicized  form  of  the  Italian  in- 
trinsecare,  to  entangle,  which  was  used  by  a  few  writ- 
ers of  the  Elizabethan  age.  And  here  again  I  suggest, 
and  indeed  am  sure,  that  we  have  an  example  of  the 
misleading  influence  of  pronunciation  upon  the  print- 
er's art.  For  the  intrench  of  the  quarto  is  merely  a 
phonetic  spelling  of  intrinse.1  We  have  still  a  rem- 
nant of  this  pronunciation.  Not  uncommonly  provin- 
cial people,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  "  plain  people,"  talk  of 
"  renching  [for  rinsing]  clothes,"  or  say  "  rench  [for 
rinse]  those  glasses."  Just  so  intrinse  was  pro- 
nounced intrench.  The  pronunciation  rench  for  rinse 
is  but  the  survival  of  an  old  fashion.  As  to  the  word 
intrinse,  it  means  merely  entangled,  knotted  ;  but  what 
would  have  become  of  this  passage  were  it  not  for 
Shakespearean  editors? 

Lear,  consciously  deceiving  himself,  I  think  (I  can 
indicate  his  state  of  mind  with  brevity  no  otherwise), 
says  to  Eegan,  when,  cursing  Goneril,  he  flies  to  his 
second  daughter,  — 

No,  Regan,  thou  shalt  never  have  my  curse. 
Thy  tender-hefted  nature  shall  not  give 
Thee  o'er  to  harshness. 

Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

This  is  the  folio  reading ;  the  quarto  reading  in  the 
second  line  is  "  tender-hested."  The  word  is  spelled 
with  the  old-fashioned  long  J\  which  might  easily  be  a 
misprint  for  /;  but  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  both  of 
the  quarto  impressions,  although  they  differ  here  typo- 
graphically, have  "tender-AesteJ."  In  any  case,  how- 
ever, what  will  the  advocate  of  an  unedited  text  of 
Shakespeare  do  here  ?  Is  either  reading  "  the  text  of 
Shakespeare  "  ?  What  does  either  a  tender-hefted 
nature  or  a  tender-hested  nature  mean?  It  is  said 

1  See  "Memorandums,"  etc.,  before  cited,  under  S,  which  was  often 
pronounced  sh. 


194  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

that  as  heft  means  handle,  tender-hefted  "  means  smooth 
or  soft  handled,  and  is  here  put  for  gentleness  of  dis- 
position." Another  explanation  is  that  tender-hefted 
means  "delicately  housed,  daintily  bodied,  finely 
sheathed."  The  latter  is  given  in  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review,"  and  also  by  Aldis  Wright,  the  Cambridge 
editor,  who  adds,  "  Regan  was  less  masculine  than 
Goneril."  Was  she  ?  She  assists  at  the  most  fright- 
ful and  revolting  scene  in  all  tragedy,  —  introduced 
by  Shakespeare,  I  believe,  partly  to  show  the  savage 
nature  of  the  times  he  was  depicting,  —  the  tearing 
out  of  Gloucester's  eyes ;  and  she,  with  her  own  "  ten- 
der-hefted "  hand,  kills  the  servant  who  assists  her 
husband  in  the  act.  She  seems  to  me  rather  the  worse 
of  the  two  elder  sisters.  But  whether  she  is  so  or  not, 
can  we  accept  any  one  of  these  explanations  of  this 
strange  compound  word  ?  I  think  that  they  are  all  not 
only  much  too  far-fetched,  but  entirely  from  the  pur- 
pose. Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first  editor,  read  "  tender- 
heartcd  nature,"  a  very  plausible  emendation,  which 
other  editors  have  adopted.  But  how  came  this  sim- 
ple and  hardly-to-be-mistaken  phrase  to  be  misprint- 
ed in  both  the  old  impressions,  which  were  separated 
by  a  space  of  fifteen  years,  and  which  were  put  in  type 
from  different  "copy"?  This  question  is  one  of  a 
sort  that  Shakespeare's  editors  have  not  unfrequently 
to  pass  upon.  "  Tender-hefted  "  is  inexplicable  con- 
sistently with  common  sense  and  Shakespeare's  use  of 
language.  "  Tender-hearted  "  is  inadmissible  against 
the  reading  of  both  quarto  and  folio.  After  all,  is  it 
not  the  f  in  the  folio  that  is  the  misprint,  and  is  not 
the  quarto  right  ?  Did  not  Shakespeare  write  tender- 
hested  nature  ;  that  is,  tenderly  commanded,  tenderly 
ruled,  tenderly  ordered  nature  ?  If  he  did  not,  I,  for 


KING   LEAR.  195 

one,  give  up  the  passage  as  inexplicable  and  hopelessly 
corrupt. 

When  Regan  urges  Lear  to  return  to  Goneril  and 
live  with  her  with  half  his  stipulated  train,  he  breaks 
out, — 

Return  to  her,  and  fifty  men  clismiss'd ! 
No,  rather  I  abjure  all  roofs,  and  choose 
To  wage  against  the  enmity  o'  th'  air, 
To  be  a  comrade  with  the  wolf  and  owl,  — 
Necessity's  sharp  pinch.     Return  with  her? 

The  old  copies  agree  in  this  reading.  The  meaning  of 
the  phrase  "necessity's  sharp  pinch"  is  plain  enough; 
but  what  does  Lear  imply  in  it  ?  What  is  its  connec- 
tion? The  Collier  folio  has  "  and  liowl  necessity's  sharp 
pinch,"  which  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  Mr.  Furness 
adopts.  Lear  surely  did  not  mean  to  speak  of  howling 
the  sharp  pinch  of  necessity.  The  first  line  of  Regan's 
speech,  to  which  this  of  Lear  is  a  reply,  seems  to 
make  the  passage  clear.  She  says  to  him,  — 

"  I  pray  you,  father,  being  weak,  seem  so  ;" 

that  is,  submit  to  the  hard  necessity  of  your  condition. 
To  this  Lear,  choleric,  proud,  and  kingly,  replies, 
[Shall  I  yield  to]  necessity's  sharp  pinch  [and]  return 
with  her  !  The  phrase  is  merely  an  elliptical  interrog- 
ative exclamation.  It  seems  to  me  that  to  a  reader 
who  is  in  sympathy  with  the  scene  it  hardly  needs  ex- 
planation, and  that  the  Collier  folio  reading  is  insuf- 
ferable. 

But  I  must  bring  this  consideration  of  particular 
passages  to  a  close  ;  and  I  shall  remark  upon  only  one 
more,  which,  as  it  stands  in  both  the  quarto  impres- 
sions and  in  all  subsequent  editions,  is  certainly  one 
of  the  most  incomprehensible  ii!  all  Shakespeare's 
plays.  In  the  scene  in  which  Gloucester  loses  his  eyes, 
he,  referring  to  the  driving  of  old  Lear  out  into  the 


196  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

storm,  says  boldly  to  Began,  as  the  passage  appears  in 
the  quartos,  in  the  variorum  of  1821,  in  the  Cambridge 
edition,  in  the  Globe,  and  my  own :  — 

If  wolves  had  at  thy  pate  howl'd  that  stern  time 
Thou  shouldst  have  said  :  "  Good  porter,  turn  the  key." 
All  cniels  else  subscrib'd:  but  I  shall  see 
The  winged  vengeance  overtake  such  children. 

Act  III.  Sc.  7. 

The  folio  has,  "  All  cruels  else  subscribe"  But 
whether  we  read  subscribe  or  subscribed,  what  is  the 
meaning  of  this  phrase  ?  Its  obscurity  is  so  great  that 
the  notes  upon  it  fill,  in  small  type,  the  whole  of  one 
of  Mr.  Furness's  ample  pages.  How  it  was  that  I 
came  to  pass  it  without  remark  in  my  first  edition  I 
cannot  undertake  to  say.  It  was  a  strange  oversight. 
Dr.  Johnson  says  that  subscrib'd  means  "yielded, 
submitted  to  the  necessity  of  the  occasion  ;  "  but  what 
help  does  that  give  ?  Aldis  Wright  says  that  "  all 
cruels  else  subscrib'd"  means  "all  other  cruelties 
being  yielded  or  forgiven."  Moberly,  the  able  editor 
of  the  Rugby  edition,  says  that  it  means  "  all  harsh- 
ness, otherwise  natural,  being  forborne  or  yielded 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case."  Schmidt,  whom  it 
is  the  fashion  now  to  regard  as  an  "  authority "  of 
weight  on  Shakespeare's  words,  because  he  has  made 
an  alphabetical  catalogue  of  them  with  explanations, 
says,  "  '  All  cruels '  can  mean  nothing  else  but  all  cruel 
creatures,"  and  that  the  passage  means,  "  everything 
which  is  at  other  times  cruel  shows  feeling  or  regard ; 
you  alone  have  not  done  so."  Mr.  Furness,  in  despe- 
ration, it  would  seem,  makes  this  phrase  a  part  of  the 
supposed  instructions  to  the  porter,  and  reads,  — 

Thou  shouldst  have  said :  "  Good  porter,  turn  the  key, 
All  cruels  else  subscribe."     But  I  shall  see,  etc. 

with  this  paraphrase :  "  Thou  shouldst  have  said, '  Good 


KING  LEAR.  197 

porter,  open  the  gates ;  acknowledge  the  claims  of  all 
creatures,  however  cruel  they  may  be  at  other  times.' " 
It  is  not  necessary  to  quote  or  to  remark  upon  any 
other  of  the  explanations ;  and  I  feel  that  I  cannot 
err  in  saying  that  none  of  these  is  at  all  satisfactory, 
and  that  among  them  Schmidt's  is  the  least  acceptable. 
But  it  seems  to  me  also  that  after  all  there  is  little  diffi- 
culty in  the  passage,  except  in  the  word  "  cruels,"  and 
that  that  is  far  from  being  inexplicable.  It  means,  I 
believe,  all  cruelties,  all  occasions  of  cruelty,  —  a  use 
of  language  quite  in  Shakespeare's  manner.  The  folio 
gives  the  true  reading  with  the  proper  punctuation 
according  to  the  fashion  of  the  time.  There  is  a  full 
stop  after  "  Good  porter  turn  the  key,"  and  a  colon 
after  "  subscribe,"  thus :  — 

Thou  shoudst  have  said,  Good  Porter  turne  the  key. 

All  Cruels  else  subscribe:  but  I  shall  see 

The  winged  Vengeance  overtake  such  Children. 

Now  in  such  passages  in  old  books  a  colon  has  the 
power  which  in  more  modern  punctuation  is  expressed 
by  a  comma,  and  merely  marks  off  the  subject  of  an 
assertion.  "  Subscribe  "  is  here  used  in  the  sense  of 
attest,  guaranty,  a  use  common  with  Shakespeare,  and 
not  uncommon  nowadays,  and  but  in  a  sense  which  it 
also  has  at  present,  —  that.  The  construction  of  the 
passage  (which  really  should  not  require  all  this  ex- 
planation) is,  then,  this :  After  Gloucester  has  told 
Regan  that  she  should  have  told  the  porter  to  open 
the  door,  he  utters  the  solemn  asseveration,  —  All 
other  such  cruelties  attest,  that  I  shall  see  swift  ven* 
geance  overtake  such  children.  So  Albany  says  — 

This  shows  you  are  above, 
You  jtisticers,  that  these  our  nether  crimes, 
So  speedily  can  venge. 

Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 


198  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Let  the  passage  be  printed  just  as  it  is  in  the  folio, 
with  the  mere  (and  usual)  substitution  of  a  comma  for 
the  old  colon  :  — 

Thou  shouldst  have  said,  Good  porter  turn  the  key. 

All  cruels  else  subscribe,  but  I  shall  see 

The  winged  vengeance  overtake  such  children. 

Mr.  Furness's  perception  of  the  supreme  difficulty 
of  this  passage  as  it  is  usually  printed  is  only  an  indica- 
tion of  his  fitness  for  the  great  work  that  he  has  under- 
taken. In  his  apprehension  of  Shakespeare's  thought 
he  shows  generally  that  combination  of  sensitiveness 
and  common  sense  which  goes  to  the  making  of  a  first- 
rate  editor  of  a  great  poet,  and  which  most  of  all  is 
required  in  the  editor  of  Shakespeare.  Dyce,  for  ex- 
ample, had  great  learning  and  good  judgment ;  but 
he  lacked  that  power  of  apprehension  which  comes 
from  a  condition  of  the  mind  sympathetic  with  the 
moods  of  a  great  poet,  and  consequently,  with  all  his 
learning  and  his  ability,  he  produced  a  second  or  third 
rate  critical  edition  of  this  author. 

I  hope  that  in  quoting  several  notes  upon  the  pas- 
sage, 

Ingratitude,  then  marble-hearted  fiend, 

More  hideous  when  thou  show'st  thee  in  a  child 

Than  the  sea  monster  ! 

Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

the  object  of  which  is  to  show  what  particular  swim- 
ming beast  the  sea  monster  is,  Mr.  Furness  was,  as  he 
says  in  his  preface,  merely  illustrating  the  history  of 
Shakespearean  criticism.  For  surely  never  was  criti- 
cal conjecture  more  wasted  than  in  attempting  to  re- 
move the  vagueness  of  that  image  by  giving  the  sea 
monster  a  specific  name.  For  vagueness  not  only  ex- 
cites terror,  but  enhances  horror,  and  is  indeed  a  con- 
stant element  in  the  awful,  and  in  all  the  exciting 


KING   LEAR.  199 

causes  of  the  great  apprehensive  emotions.  To  give 
Lear's  sea  monster  a  name  and  a  form  is  to  drag  him 
down  from  the  higher  regions  of  poetry  into  the  plain 
prose  of  natural  history.  He  becomes  at  once  a  pos- 
sible inmate  of  an  aquarium,  or  an  item  in  the  Great- 
est Show  on  Earth.  Who  thanks  Upton  for  suggest- 
ing that  Shakespeare  made  Lear  compare  ingratitude 
to  a  "  hippopotamus,"  or  another  commentator  for  de- 
ciding sagely  that  it  was  "  a  whale  "  that  Shakespeare 
had  in  mind  ?  Hudson  objects  that  a  hippopotamus 
is  not  a  sea  monster,  but  a  river  monster  (indeed,  have 
we  not  the  famous  showman's  assurance  that  the  name 
"  is  derived  from  liippo,  a  river,  and  potamos,  a 
horse"?),  and  he  might  have  added  with  equal  pro- 
priety that  a  whale,  although  it  is  the  largest  of  post- 
diluvian animals,  is  not  at  all  hideous.  But,  O  gentle 
critic,  it  is  not  because  the  hippopotamus  is  a  river 
haunter,  or  because  the  whale  is  not  repulsive,  that 
these  suggestions  are  injurious  to  the  passage,  but  be- 
cause they  belittle  it.  You  do,  as  might  be  expected 
of  you,  much  better  when  you  say,  "  If  the  poet  had 
any  particular  animal  in  view,  I  suspect  it  was  the  one 
that  behaved  so  ungently  at  old  Troy."  For  what  was 
that  particular  Trojan  animal?  The  poets  did  not 
know  themselves  any  more  than  Shakespeare  did.  It 
was  simply  a  sea  monster.  Your  "  if  "  is  a  very  po- 
tent and  pertinent  little  word.  Shakespeare,  be  sure, 
had  no  particular  animal  even  in  his  own  mind's  eye. 
The  sea  has  always-  been  in  the  popular  mind  the 
home  of  monsters,  huge,  horrible,  shapeless,  pitiless, 
insatiable  ;  and  to  excite  the  vague  dread  which  is  born 
of  ignorance  and  fancy  was  the  poet's  purpose.  His 
end  was  mystery  ;  why  endeavor  to  reduce  his  mystery 
to  certainty?  Must  we  in  all  things  be  so  "  scientific" 


200 


STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 


as  to  substitute  positive  knowledge  for  an  undefined 
loathing  ?  Must  we  classify  and  pigeon-hole  the  very 
causes  of  our  emotions  ? 

The  poet  worked  in  a  way  directly  converse  to  this, 
having  a  directly  opposite  end  in  view,  when  he  made 
Edmund  (Act  I.  Sc.  2)  say,  "My  cue  is  villanous 
melancholy,"  etc.,  and  end  his  speech,  "jfa,  sol,  la, 
mi."  It  has  been  pointed  out  by  two  musicians,  who 
are  among  Shakespeare's  commentators,  that  this  suc- 
cession of  notes  is  "  unnatural  and  offensive  "  and 
"distracting."  But  Aldis  Wright  says  that  Mr. 
Chappell  informed  him  that  "  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est foundation  "  for  this  view  of  the  passage,  and  that 
"  Edmund  is  merely  singing  to  himself,  in  order  to 
seem  not  to  observe  Edgar's  approach."  Mr.  Chap- 
pell  is  a  very  accomplished  musician  ;  and  he  is  none 
the  less  so  because  he  has,  in  my  judgment,  misappre- 
hended this  passage.  True,  a  desire  to  seem  not  to 
observe  Edgar's  approach  is  the  occasion  of  his  sing- 
ing to  himself ;  but  why  does  he  sing  as  he  does  ? 
Why  does  he  not  begin,  as  a  singer  naturally  would 
(not  singing  an  air),  on  the  tonic?  thus, 


The  notes  which  he  sings  are  these :  — 

1 -|— \ 


Now  to  any  musical  ear  this  succession  of  notes  sug- 
gests a  discord  that  must  be  resolved  by  the  chord 
of  the  tonic  :  — 


KING   LEAR.  201 

This  resolution  would  have  been  implied  if  Edmund 
had  gone  on,  as  he  naturally  would  have  done,  and 
sung  fa,  sol,  la,  mi,  fa  :  — 


t£-* — •- — * — p — h-= 

'tr 


But,  beginning  on  the  sub-dominant,  he  stops  short  of 
the  tonic  upon  the  leading  note  of  the  scale  ;  and  this 
when  he  has  just  said,  u  These  eclipses  do  portend 
these  divisions/'  —  divisions  being  used  in  a  double 
sense,  that  of  distraction,  and  the  musical  sense  —  in 
which  Shakespeare  often  uses  it  —  of  a  rapid  succession 
of  notes.  Surely  it  could  not  have  been  by  chance 
that  Shakespeare,  a  musician,  did  this.  It  is  as  if 
this  chord 


were  played  and  not  resolved ;  a  discipline  to  which 
Mr.  Chappell,  because  he  is  an  accomplished  musician, 
would,  I  suspect,  not  like  to  be  subjected. 

In  a  speech  of  Gloucester's,  the  close  of  which  has 
already  been  commented  upon,  he,  speaking  of  the 
storm  which  plays  such  an  important  part  in  this  trag- 
edy that  it  may  almost  be  numbered  among  the  dra- 
matis personce,  says  of  it,  — 

The  sea,  with  such  a  storm  as  his  bare  head 

In  hell-black  night  endur'd,  would  have  buoy'd  up, 

And  quench'd  the  stelled  tires. 

Act  III.  Sc.  7. 

This  is  the  reading  of  the  folio  and  of  the  quartos ; 
but  is  "  buoy'd  up  "  to  be  accepted  without  question  ? 
Mr.  Furness  and  all  the  best  editors  leave  it  undis- 
turbed ;  but  in  both  the  Collier  folio  and  the  Quincy 
folio  "  luoyd  up  "  is  changed  to  "  boiVd  up."  Heath, 


202  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

who  is  among  the  good  Shakespeare  commentators, 
says  that  buoyed  is  "  used  here  as  the  middle  voice  in 
Greek,  signifying  to  buoy  or  lift  itself  up  ;  "  and  if 
ths  word  is  to  be  retained  this  doubtless  is  the  sense 
in  which  it  must  be  taken.  But  Schmidt  takes  exactly 
the  opposite  view  of  the  word,  and  says  that  the  verb 
is  "  used  here  transitively,  and  the  phrase  means,  the 
sea  would  have  lifted  up  the  fixed  fires  and  extin- 
guished them."  Now  buoy  is  a  strange  word.  It  has 
come  to  mean  in  English  just  what  it  does  not  mean 
etymologieally.  A  buoy  (Dutch  boei)  is  a  chain,  a 
fetter ;  and  a  buoy  is  so  called  not  because  it  floats, 
but  because  it  is  chained  to  its  place.  But  because  it 
does  float  its  name  has  been  understood  and  used  to 
mean  a  float,  and  has  also  been  made  a  verb  meaning 
to  float  or  lift  up ;  and  buoyant,  instead  of  meaning 
chained  down,  as  by  rights  it  should,  has  come  to 
mean  light  and  ready  to  move  freely  about  and  above. 
1 11  warrant  that  many  persons  have  thought  that 
buoyant  in  its  very  sound  suggested  lightness  and  mo- 
bility, and  that  there  was  some  connection  between 
this  and  its  meaning.  Such  notions  are  generally 
mere  fancies.  The  word  came  into  the  English  lan- 
guage, with  other  of  our  maritime  phrases,  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  But  did  the  change  in  its  meaning 
take  place  so  early  as  the  sixteenth  century,  or  even 
as  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
"  King  Lear  "  was  written  ?  I  doubt  that  it  did.  I 
doubt  that  any  evidence  can  be  produced  even  that 
buoy  was  used  as  a  verb  at  all  at  that  period.  None, 
at  least,  has  been  recorded  in  any  publication  known 
to  me.  We  have  it  as  a  noun,  meaning  a  fixed  mark 
upon  the  water,  but  with  no  other  meaning.  These 
facts  point  to  the  improbability  of  the  word's  being 


KING  LEAR.  203 

used  in  the  extraordinary  sense  in  which  it  must  be 
used  in  this  passage,  and  give  a  seeming  strong  sup- 
port to  the  reading  "  would  have  boiVd  up,"  which 
presents  a  natural,  although  a  hyperbolical,  picture  of 
the  foaming  sea  raised  as  high  as  heaven  by  the  storm. 

But  there  is  one  consideration  that  destroys  the 
force  of  all  these  facts.  It  is  this :  that  buoy,  being 
unknown  as  a  verb  in  Shakespeare's  time,  buoyed 
could  not  have  been  put  in  type  by  a  compositor,  or 
written  by  a  copyist,  who  had  boiled  before  his  eyes. 
Neither  would  or  could  thus  have  changed  a  well- 
known  word  into  one  that  was  unknown.  The  very 
fact  that  buoy  as  a  verb  was  unknown,  or  almost  un- 
known, in  Shakespeare's  time  shows  that  Shakespeare 
must  have  written  buoyed.  Besides,  it  would  be  like 
a  poet,  and  like  Shakespeare  among  poets,  to  see  in  a 
buoy  not  its  fixed  position,  but  its  floating  and  appar- 
ently self-sustaining  power.  If,  therefore,  it  was,  as 
I  am  inclined  to  think  it  will  be  found  to  be,  that 
Shakespeare,  in  his  free  and  no-verbal-critic-fearing 
use  of  language,  was  the  first  to  make  buoy  a  verb, 
his  use  of  it  as  a  reciprocal  verb,  making  the  sea  buoy 
up  (Heath's  middle  voice),  is  explained.  He  was  not 
using  a  word  which  already  had  an  established  mean- 
ing. The  old  reading  "  would  have  buoy'd  up  "  must 
be  retained,  with  the  sense  that  the  sea  rose  so  high 
that  it  would  have  extinguished  the  stars.  For 
Schmidt's  notion  that  it  buoyed  up  the  stars  and 
also  put  them  out  is  not  only  absurd  in  itself,  but 
lacks  support  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  was  used 
in  Shakespeare's  day. 

The  remarks  made  above  upon  the  influence  of  the 
pronunciation  of  Shakespeare's  time  upon  his  text 
lead  to  some  others  upon  the  same  subject.  First,  this 


204  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

play  which  we  call  "  King  Leer"  was  known  to  Shake- 
speare and  his  contemporaries  as  "  King  Lare"  This 
is  not  only  certain  from  the  general  pronunciation  of 
the  combination  ea  as  ay  at  that  time,1  but  from  the 
spelling  of  the  name  in  the  old  play  which  preceded 
Shakespeare's,  and  in  the  old  chronicles  in  prose  and 
in  verse.  This  is  invariably  Leir ;  and  the  combi- 
nation ei  then  indicated  the  same  sound  which  it  still 
indicates  in  weight,  freight,  obeisance,  etc. 

One  of  the  Fool's  little  rhyming  speeches  is  re- 
markable on  the  score  of  pronunciation :  — 

Nuiicle  Lear,  nuncle  Lear,  tarry  and  take  the  Fool  with  thee. 
A  fox,  when  one  has  caught  her, 
And  such  a  daughter, 
Should  sure  to  the  slaughter, 
If  my  cap  would  buy  a  halter: 
So  the  fool  follows  after. 

Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

As  to  the  rhymes  of  the  first  three  lines,  there  is 
of  course  no  difficulty ;  and  when  it  is  taken  into  con- 
sideration that  the  I  in  such  words  as  halter,  falter, 
falcon,  etc.,  was  silent  in  Shakespeare's  time,2  almost 
the  whole  of  the  apparent  difficulty  has  disappeared. 
For  no  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  rustic,  that  is  the 
old-fashioned,  pronunciation  of  daughter,  slaughter, 
and  after  will  then  fail  to  see  that  the  Fool  pro- 
nounced these  rhyming  words  thus  :  — 

A  fox,  when  one  has  cart  her, 
And  such  a  darter, 
Should  sure  to  the  slarter, 
If  my  cap  would  buy  a  harter: 
So  the  fool  follows  arter. 

Upon  the  passage  usually  printed,  — 

Half  way  down 
Hangs  one  that  gathers  samphire,  — dreadful  trade! 

Act  IV.  SQ.  6. 

1  See  the  "Memorandums,"  etc.,  cited  above. 

2  See  Chapter  XV.  in  Every-Day  English. 


KING  LEAR.  205 

Mr.  Furness  has  a  sound  and  sensible  note.  The  old 
copies  spell  "samphire"  sampire,  and  Mr.  Furness 
says,  "  I  think  that  the  old  spelling  should  be  re- 
tained ;  it  shows  the  old  pronunciation  and  the  deri- 
vation ;  thus  spelled,  and  pronounced  sampeer,  all 
who  are  familiar  with  the  sandy  beaches  of  New 
Jersey  will  recognize  in  it  an  old  friend."  He  is 
right  beyond  a  doubt. 

That  Shakespeare  wrote  the  rhyming  speech  of  the 
Fool  remarked  upon  just  above  I  am  not  sure.  It  is 
not  at  all  equal  to  the  other  rhymes  vented  by  the 
same  personage  in  the  same  scene ;  and  not  only  so,  it 
is  of  a  different  sort.  A  similar  speech,  unquotable 
here,  of  this  wonderful  personage,  at  the  end  of  the 
first  act,  has  been  under  the  gravest  suspicion  as  to 
its  authenticity  since  Steevens's  time.  I  expressed  the 
opinion,  in  my  own  edition,  that  the  Merlin  proph- 
ecy uttered  by  the  Fool  at  the  end  of  the  second  scene 
of  Act  III.  is  also  spurious,  and  gave  my  reasons  there- 
for. Critical  opinion  seems  to  be  settling  itself  in 
favor  of  this  view  of  the  passage. 

The  Cambridge  editors  (Clark  and  Aldis  Wright) 
throw  suspicion  also  upon  the  soliloquy  beginning,  — 

When  we  our  betters  see  bearing  our  woes, 

with  which  Edgar  closes  the  sixth  scene  of  Act  III. 
They  say,  referring  to  its  having  been  retained  by  all 
previous  editors,  "In  deference  to  this  consensus  of 
authority  we  have  retained  it,  though,  as  it  seems  to  us, 
internal  evidence  is  conclusive  against  the  supposition 
that  the  lines  were  written  by  Shakespeare." 

It  is  in  favor  of  this  opinion,  and  also  of  a  like 
judgment  upon  the  two  passages  mentioned  before, 
that  in  each  case  the  suspected  speech  comes  at  the 
end  of  a  scene,  and  is  spoken  by  a  personage  who  re- 


206  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

mains  while  the  others  go  out.  This  is  just  the  place 
in  which  to  look  for  interpolations.  They  are,  in  the 
first  place,  easily  made  in  such  situations,  because  the 
writer  of  them  is  freed  from  the  necessity  of  harmon- 
izing them  with  anything  immediately  succeeding; 
and,  next,  because  of  a  stage  demand  for  them.  For 
if  there  is  anything  dear  to  an  actor's  soul  it  is  to  be 
left  alone  upon  the  stage  to  occupy  the  attention  of 
an  already  excited  audience,  and  to  have  the  curtain 
fall  or  the  scene  shut  upon  his  soliloquy  and  his  soli- 
tary figure.  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  common 
thing  on  the  easy-going  stage  of  Shakespeare's  time 
for  an  actor  to  beg  some  one  of  the  many  playwrights 
who  were  always  hanging  about  the  theatres,  hungry 
for  shillings  and  thirsty  for  sack,  to  write  a  few 
lines  for  him,  —  just  a  little  bit  for  him  to  close  the 
scene  with.  Hamlet's  instructions  to  the  players  show 
that  Shakespeare  had  suffered  in  this  way,  especially 
at  the  hands  of  those  who  played  his  Fools. 

As  to  this  soliloquy  of  Edgar's,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted by  every  considerate  and  appreciative  reader 
that  both  in  thought  and  in  rhythm  it  is  wholly  un- 
like the  scene  which  it  closes,  and,  with  a  few  excep- 
tions which  I  shall  point  out,  unlike  the  rest  of  the 
play.  It  is  hardly  more  than  a  succession  of  almost 
trite  moral  reflections  put  in  a  sententious  form,  and 
written  in  verse  as  weak,  as  constrained,  and  as  for- 
mal as  that  of  a  French  tragedy.  I  quote  it,  not  only 
that  this  may  be  seen,  but  for  the  purposes  of  a 
comparison  to  be  made  hereafter :  — 

When  we  our  betters  see  bearing  our  woes, 
We  scarcely  think  our  miseries  our  foes. 
Who  alone  suffers,  suffers  most  i'  th'  mind, 
Leaving  free  things  and  happy  shows  behind. 
But  then  the  mind  much  sufferance  doth  o'erskip 


KING  LEAR.  207 

When  grief  hath  mates,  and  bearing,  fellowship. 

How  light  and  portable  my  pain  seems  now 

When  that  which  makes  me  bend  makes  the  King  bow :  — 

He  childed  as  I  father'd!     Tom,  away! 

Mark  the  high  noises,  and  thyself  bewray, 

When  false  opinion,  whose  wrong  thought  defiles  thee, 

In  thy  just  proof  repeals  and  reconciles  thee. 

What  will  hap  more  to-night,  safe  'scape  the  King! 

Lurk,  lurk ! 

Act  III.  Sc.  6. 

What  have  these  piping  couplets  to  do  with  the  grand, 
deep  diapason  of  the  blank  verse  of  King  Lear !  A 
reader  with  an  ear  and  a  brain  will  be  likely  to 
say,  —  Nothing.  But  let  us  pause  awhile  before  we 
make  a  final  decision,  and,  turning  to  the  first  scene, 
look  at  a  speech  of  Kent's,  who  is  just  banished  :  — 

Fare  thee  well,  king;  sith  thus  thou  wilt  appear, 
Freedom  lives  hence,  and  banishment  is  here. 
The  gods  to  their  dear  shelter  take  thee,  maid, 
That  justly  think'st  and  hast  most  rightly  said1. 
And  your  large  speeches  may  your  deeds  approve 
That  good  effects  may  spring  from  words  of  love. 
Thus  Kent,  O  princes,  bids  you  all  adieu  ; 
He  '11  shape  his  old  course  in  a  country  new. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

And  these  prim  platitudes  are  uttered  by  the  man  who 
only  a  few  lines  before  speaks  in  this  style :  — 

Let  it  fall  rather,  though  the  fork  invade 

The  region  of  my  heart  :  Be  Kent  unmannerly 

When  Lear  is  mad.     What  wilt  thou  do,  old  man? 

Thinkst  thou  that  duty  shall^have  dread  to  speak, 

When  power  to  flattery  bows?    To  plainness  honour's  bound, 

When  majesty  stoops  to  folly.  .  .  . 

Kill  thy  physician,  and  the  fee  bestow 

Upon  thy  foul  disease.     Revoke  thy  doom; 

Or,  whilst  I  can  vent  clamour  from  my  throat, 

I  '11  tell  thee  thou  dost  evil. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

Not  only  would  it  seem  that  the  speeches  were  written 
by  different  poets,  but  that  they  were  written  for 
different  personages.  And  there  is  a  trace  of  the 
same  weakness,  consciousness,  and  constraint  in  these 


208  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

rhymed  speeches  by  Goneril  and  by  Cordelia  toward 
the  end  of  this  scene :  — 

Gon.  Let  your  study 

Be  to  content  your  lord,  who  hath  received  you 
At  fortune's  alms.     You  have  obedience  scanted, 
And  well  are  worth  the  want  that  you  have  wanted. 

Cor,    Time  shall  unfold  what  plaited  cunning  hides  : 
Who  cover  faults,  at  last  them  shame  derides. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

This  brings  us  to  the  point  that  such  is  always 
the  style  of  the  rhymed  soliloquies  in  these  plays. 
If  Shakespeare  wrote  them  all,  we  must  infer  that 
the  production  of  didactic  poetry  in  rhyme  crippled 
his  mind  and  fettered  his  pen.  Compare  Edgar's 
speech,  quoted  above,  which  is  the  occasion  of  these 
remarks,  with  Friar  Laurence's  soliloquy  in  the  third 
scene  of  Act  II.  of  "  Romeo  and  Juliet."  I  quote  a 
few  lines  for  present  convenience  :  — 

O,  mickle  is  the  powerful  grace  that  lies 

In  herbs,  plants,  stones,  and  their  true  qualities  : 

For  nought  so  vile  that  on  the  earth  doth  live 

But  to  the  earth  some  special  good  doth  give, 

Nor  aught  so  good  but  strain' d  from  that  fair  use 

Revolts  from  true  birth,  stumbling  on  abuse  : 

Virtue  itself  turns  vice,  being  misapplied  ; 

And  vice  sometimes  by  action  dignified. 

Within  the  infant  rind  of  this  small  flower 

Poison  hath  residence,  and  medicine,  power  ; 

For  this,  being  smelt,  with  that  part  cheers  each  part; 

Being  tasted,  slays  all  senses  with  the  heart. 

This  is  precisely  the  style  of  thought  and  of  verse 
that  we  find  in  Edgar's  speech  in  question.  The 
rhythm,  the  very  sound  of  the  lines,  in  the  two  pas- 
sages is  almost  the  same.  What  could  be  more  like 
these  lines  from  Edgar's  speech,  — 

But  then  the  mind  much  suffering  doth  o'erskip 
When  grief  hath  mates,  and  bearing,  fellowship,— 

than  these  from  the  friar's  :  — 

Within  the  infant  rind  of  this  small  flower 
Poison  hath  residence,  and  medicine,  power  ? 


KING  LEAR.  209 

Plainly,  it  seems  to  me,  if  upon  evidence  of  style  and 
structure  we  refuse  to  accept  one  of  these  speeches  as 
of  Shakespeare's  writing,  we  must  also  refuse  to  accept 
the  other.  Their  metal  is  not  only  out  of  the  same 
mine,  but  is  minted  with  the  same  die.  But  may  we 
be  sure  that  Shakespeare  wrote  either  of  them?  If 
we  once  begin  to  suspect  and  to  reject,  where  are  we 
to  stop  ?  And  in  his  day  play-writing  was  such  a 
mere  trade,  such  a  mere  manufacture  of  material  for 
the  use  of  the  theatre,  and  playwrights  were  so  con- 
stantly at  work  together  upon  great  jobs  and  small 
jobs,  —  and  Shakespeare  in  his  own  day  was  only  one 
of  these,  —  that  we  can  accept  nothing  as  absolutely 
his  that  does  not  bear  plainly  upon  it  the  royal  image 
and  superscription. 

The  one  point  to  be  constantly  kept  in  mind  in  the 
critical  consideration  of  Shakespeare's  dramas  is  that 
they  were  written  by  a  second-rate  actor,  who,  much 
against  his  will,  was  compelled  to  live  by  the  stage  in 
some  way,  and  whose  first  object  was  money,  —  to  get 
on  in  life.  He  wrote  what  he  wrote  merely  to  fill  the 
theatre  and  his  own  pockets ;  he  wrote  as  he  wrote, 
because  he  was  born  the  poet  of  poets,  the  dramatist 
of  dramatists,  the  philosopher  of  philosophers,  the 
most  world-knowing  of  all  men  of  the  world.  There 
was  as  much  deliberate  purpose  in  his  breathing  as  in 
his  play-writing. 

In  Edgar's  speech  in  question  there  is  a  single 
word  which  makes  much  against  its  authenticity.  He, 
alone  and  supposed  to  be  merely  thinking  aloud,  calls 
himself  Tom.  This  naturally  he  would  not  do ;  this 
he  does  not  do  in  any  other  instance  when  he  is  alone. 
He  reserves  that  name  for  company,  and  to  use  his 
own  phrase  in  regard  to  his  assumed  character,  "  daubs 
14 


210  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

it "  only  for  their  benefit.  This  one  consideration  is 
almost  conclusive  against  the  authenticity  of  the 
speech. 

I  have  considered  only  a  few  of  the  questions  in  re- 
gard to  the  text  of  this  tragedy  which  are  suggested 
by  Mr.  Furness's  thorough  and  discriminating  edition 
of  it,  the  study  of  which  must  hereafter  be  a  prime 
object  with  every  critical  reader  of  Shakespeare. 

II.    PLOT   AND    PERSONAGES. 

Shakespeare  was  forty-one  years  old  when  he  wrote 
"  King  Lear."  Just  at  the  time  of  life  when  a  well- 
constituted,  healthy  man  has  attained  the  maturity  of 
his  faculties,  he  produced  the  work  in  which  we  see 
his  mind  in  all  its  might  and  majesty.  He  had  then 
been  an  actor  some  fifteen  years,  and  of  his  greater 
plays  he  had  written  "  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  "  The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice,"  "  King  Henry  IV.,"  "  Much  Ado 
about  Nothing,"  "  As  You  Like  It,"  "  Hamlet,"  and 
"  Measure  for  Measure."  In  the  case  of  a  writer 
whose  work  was  of  a  nature  that  left  him  personally 
out  of  it,  it  is  not  safe  to  infer  the  condition  of  his 
mind  from  the  tone  of  his  writings.  But  it  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  "King  Lear"  quickly  followed  "Meas- 
ure for  Measure,"  and  came  next  to  it  as  an  original 
play,  and  was  itself  followed  next  by  "Timon  of 
Athens,"  and  that  in  these  three  plays  the  mirror  that 
is  held  up  to  human  nature  tells  more  revolting  and 
alarming  truths  than  are  revealed  in  all  his  other  plays 
together.  Not  in  all  the  rest  is  the  sum  of  the  counts 
of  his  indictment  of  the  great  criminal  so  great,  so 
grave,  so  black,  so  damning.  Hardly  is  there  to  be 
gathered  from  all  the  others  so  many  personages  who 


KING  LEAR.  211 

are  so  bad  in  all  the  ways  of  badness  as  the  majority 
of  those  are  which  figure  in  these  three. 

It  is,  however,  apart  from  this  fact  that  these  plays 
are  so  strongly  significant  of  Shakespeare's  judgment 
of  mankind  in  his  forty-second  year.  For,  types  of 
badness  as  these  personages  are,  what  they  say  is  ten- 
fold more  condemnatory  than  what  they  do.  The 
aphoristic  anthology  of  "Measure  for  Measure,"  "King 
Lear,"  and  "  Timon  of  Athens "  would  make  the 
blackest  pages  in  the  records  of  the  judgments  against 
mankind.  Moreover,  the  chief  dramatic  motives  of 
all  these  plays  are  selfishness  and  ingratitude ;  while 
in  two  of  them,  "  King  Lear  "  and  "  Timon,"  we  find 
the  principal  personage  expecting  to  buy  love  and 
words  of  love  and  deeds  of  love  with  bounteous  gifts, 
and  going  mad  with  disappointment  at  not  receiving 
what  he  thinks  his  due.  For  Timon  in  the  forest, 
although  he  is  not  insane,  is  surely  the  subject  of  a  self- 
inflicted  monomania.  Difficult  as  it  is  to  trace  Shake- 
speare himself  in  his  plays,  we  can  hardly  err  in  con- 
cluding that  there  must  have  been  in  his  experience 
of  life  and  in  the  condition  of  his  mind  some  reason 
for  his  production  within  three  years,  and  with  no  in- 
termediate relief,  of  three  such  plays  as  those  in  ques- 
tion. And  the  play  which  came  between  "  Measure 
for  Measure"  and  "King  Lear,"  "  All's  Well  that 
Ends  Well,"  although  it  is  probably  the  product  of 
the  working  over  of  an  earlier  play  called  "Love's 
Labour  's  Won,"  can  hardly  be  said  to  break  the  con- 
tinuity of  feeling  which  runs  through  its  predecessor 
and  its  two  immediate  successors.  In  "  All 's  Well  " 
we  have  Parolles,  the  vilest  and  basest  character,  al- 
though not  the  most  wickedly  malicious,  that  Shake- 
speare wrought ;  and  its  hero,  Bertram,  is  so  coldly 


212  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

and  brutally  selfish  that  it  is  hard  to  forgive  Helena 
her  loving  him.  Indeed,  the  tone  of  the  play  finds  an 
echo  in  the  last  lines  of  the  Clown's  song :  — 

With  that  she  sighed  as  she  stood. 

And  gave  this  sentence  then  ; 
Among  nine  bad  if  one  be  good, 
Among  nine  bad  if  one  be  good, 

There  's  yet  one  good  in  ten. 

Act  I.  Sc.  3. 

Was  it  by  sheer  chance  and  hap-hazard  that  Shake- 
speare reverted  to  this  unpleasant  story  and  these  re- 
pulsive personages  at  the  time  when,  within  three 
years,  he  wrote  "Measure  for  Measure,"  "King 
Lear,"  and  "  Timon  of  Athens  "  ? 

Although,  in  "  King  Lear,"  Shakespeare  owed  less  to 
the  authors  from  whom  he  took  his  plot  than  was  cus- 
tomary with  him  in  such  cases,  the  general  notion  that 
he  owed  little  (which  seems  to  me  rather  confirmed 
than  shaken  by  what  Mr.  Furness  says)  is  altogether 
erroneous.  The  truth  is  that  in  regard  to  plot,  inci- 
dents, personages,  and  their  characters  he  (as  his  man- 
ner was)  owed,  not  everything,  but  almost  everything 
to  his  predecessors.  In  the  construction  of  the  tragedy 
all  that  is  his  is  the  uniting  of  two  stories,  —  that  of 
Lear  and  that  of  Gloucester,  —  which  he  wrought  into 
one,  by  mighty  strength  and  subtle  art  welding  them 
together  white-heated  in  the  glowing  fire  of  his  imagi- 
nation ;  and  the  change  which  he  made  in  the  issue 
of  the  fortunes  of  Lear  and  of  Cordelia ;  for  in  the 
legend  Cordelia  triumphs,  reseats  her  father  on  the 
throne,  succeeds  him,  is  at  last  rebelled  against  by  the 
sons  of  Goneril  and  Regan,  deposed,  and  put  in  prison, 
"  wherewith  she  took  suche  griefe,  being  a  woman  of 
manlie  courage,  and  despairing  to  recover  libertie 
there,  she  slue  herself."  Verily,  these  are  great  ex- 


KING  LEAR.  213 

ceptions;  the  latter  even  one  that  suggests  Shake- 
speare's own  declaration  that  "  there  's  a  divinity  that 
shapes  our  ends,  rough-hew  them  how  we  will."  Never- 
theless, the  fact  that  he  did  find  in  the  work  of  fore- 
gone writers,  in  chronicle,  in  legend,  in  poem,  in  play, 
and  in  novel,  all  the  rest  of  the  framework,  the  skele- 
ton, of  this  his  masterpiece,  is  one  the  importance  of 
which  in  the  formation  of  a  judgment  of  his  methods, 
of  his  purposes,  and  of  the  one  apparent  limit  of  his 
genius  cannot  be  overrated. 

Most  readers  of  Shakespeare  probably  know  that 
the  story  of  Lear  and  his  three  daughters  is  of  great 
antiquity,  and  was  told  by  many  writers  in  prose  and 
verse  who  preceded  Shakespeare.  He,  we  may  be 
sure,  read  it  in  Holinshed  and  in  the  old  play  of 
"  King  Leir."  The  division  of  the  kingdom  ;  the  ex- 
travagant professions  of  love  by  Goneril  and  Regan ; 
the  reserve  of  Cordelia  ;  the  wrath  of  the  disappointed 
old  King ;  the  endeavor  of  Kent  (called  Perillus)  to 
avert  the  consequences  of  his  anger  from  his  youngest 
daughter  ;  the  marriage  of  the  elder  sisters  to  Corn- 
wall and  Albany,  and  of  the  youngest  to  the  King  of 
France ;  Lear's  living  with  the  former  alternately, 
attended  by  a  retinue  of  knights  ;  the  ingratitude 
of  Goneril  and  Regan  ;  the  return  of  Cordelia  to 
Britain  with  a  French  army  to  reestablish  her  father, 
—  all  this  was  material  made  to  Shakespeare's  hand. 
And  not  only  this  :  the  different  characters  of  the  per- 
sonages in  this  story  all  existed  in  germ  and  in  outline 
before  he  took  it  up  as  the  subject  of  this  tragedy. 

So  as  to  the  story  of  Gloucester  and  his  two  sons, 
which  was  told  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  his  "  Arcadia." 
Shakespeare  found  there  the  father,  loving,  kind 
hearted,  but  suspicious,  and  weak  in  principle  and  in 


214  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

mind ;  the  bastard,  an  ungrateful  villain ;  the  legiti- 
mate son,  a  model  of  filial  affection  ;  the  attempt  of 
his  suspicious  and  deceived  father  to  kill  him  ;  and 
even  the  loss  of  Gloucester's  eyes,  and  his  contrivance 
to  commit  suicide  by  getting  his  son  to  lead  him  to 
the  verge  of  a  cliff,  whence  he  might  cast  himself 
down  :  all  is  there,  —  the  incidents,  the  personages, 
and  their  characters. 

How  absurd,  then,  are  the  attempts  to  make  out  a 
"  philosophy  "  of  Shakespeare's  dramas,  to  find  out 
their  "  inner  life,"  to  show  that  this  or  that  incident 
An  them  had  a  profound  psychological  purpose  and 
/  meaning  !  He  simply  took  his  stories  and  his  persoii- 
(  ages  as  he  found  them,  and  wrought  them  into  such 
\  dramas  as  he  thought  would  interest  the  audiences 
\  that  came  to  the  Globe  Theatre.  And  they  were  in- 
terested in  the  stories,  in  the  personages,  and  in  their 
fortunes.  They  read  little  ;  and  they  saw  the  stories 
on  the  stage  instead  of  reading  them  in  a  printed 
page.  He  made  the  stories  thus  tell  themselves  as  no 
man  had  ever  done  before,  or  has  done  since,  or  may 
do  hereafter.  Doing  this,  he  accomplished  all  his 
purpose,  and  fulfilled  all  their  desire.  The  poetry, 
the  philosophy,  the  revelation  of  knowledge  of  the 
world  and  of  the  human  heart,  in  which  he  has  been 
equalled  by  110  other  of  the  sons  of  men,  were  all 
merely  incidental  to  his  purpose  of  entertaining  his 
hearers  profitably  to  himself.  Being  the  man  that  his 
father  had  begotten  him  and  his  mother  had  borne 
him,  if  he  did  the  former  he  must  do  the  latter.  If 
he  made  any  effort  at  all,  it  was  as  easy  for  him  to 
write  in  his  way  as  it  was  for  the  other  playwrights  of 
his  time  to  write  in  theirs.  He  talked  as  he  wrote, 
and  wrote  as  he  talked.  One  of  the  few  facts  that 


KING  LEAK.  215 

we  know  concerning  Shakespeare  is  this  one.  Ben 
Jonson  tells  it  of  him.  He  poured  out  the  rich  fruit- 
age of  his  exhaustless  fancy  and  his  ever-creating  im- 
agination, until  his  hearers  were  borne  down  and  over- 
whelmed with  it.  And  his  fellow-actors,  in  presenting 
the  first  authentic  edition  of  .his  plays  to  the  world, 
said,  "  And  what  he  thought  he  uttered  with  that  eas- 
inesse  that  wee  have  scarce  received  from  him  a  blot 
in  his  papers." 

That  it  was  the  story  that  he  told  upon  the  stage, 
and  his  way  of  telling  it,  which  interested  the  public 
of  his  day,  is  shown  by  the  history  of  the  text  of  this 
very  drama.  To  us  it  is  a  great  tragedy,  the  greatest 
dramatic  poem  in  all  literature  ;  but  when  its  great 
success  created  a  demand  for  it,  to  be  read  as  well  as 
seen,  it  was  published  as  "  Mr.  William  Shakespeare 
his  true  chronicle  historic  of  the  life  and  death  of  King 
Lear  and  his  three  daughters,  with  the  unfortunate 
life  of  Edgar,  sonne  and  heire  to  the  Earle  of  Gloster, 
and  his  sullen  and  assumed  humour  of  Tom  of  Bedlam, 
as  it  was  played,"  etc.  It  was  not  the  dramatic  poem, 
but  the  true  chronicle  history  that  captivated  the  pub- 
lic mind,  which  also  was  interested,  it  would  seem,  no 
less  in  the  strange  masquerade  of  an  earl's  son  in  the 
shape  of  a  Bedlam  beggar  (the  least  impressive  and 
the  least  valuable  part  of  the  play  as  a  work  of  art) 
than  in  the  woes  of  the  self-dethroned  monarch.  But 
there  was  another  drama  founded  upon  the  story  of 
King  Lear  ;  and  the  immeasurable  superiority,  in  the 
public  judgment,  of  the  new  dramatic  version  of  that 
story  is  evinced  by  the  anxiety  of  its  publisher  to 
advertise  which  one  he  had  for  sale.  The  pronoun 
Ms  was  then  used  as  a  mere  form  of  the  possessive  case, 
as  we  use  the  apostrophe  with  s.  "Mr.  Benjamin 


216  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Johnson  his  comedy  of  Every  Man  in  his  Humour " 
was  merely  Mr.  Benjamin  Johnson's  comedy,  etc.  But 
on  the  title-pages  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  edition 
of  this  tragedy,  his  was  not  only  printed  in  large  italic 
capital  letters,  but  made  a  line  by  itself,  thus,  — 

MR.  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

HIS 

TRUE  CHRONICLE  HISTORIE,  ETC.,— 

in  order  that  the  buyer  might  have  no  doubt  as  to 
which  "  King  Lear  "  he  was  getting.  This  use  of  his 
at  that  time  is  unique. 

Now  what  was  it  that  this  Mr.  William  Shakespeare, 
a  second-rate,  money-making  actor  at  the  Globe  Thea- 
tre at  the  Bankside,  did  to  set  all  London  running 
after  his  u  King  Lear,"  in  disregard  to  any  other? 
What  it  was  may  be  shown  by  simply  comparing  two 
corresponding  passages,  one  in  the  old  play  and  one 
in  the  new,  which  the  readers  of  Mr.  Furness's  edition 
are  enabled  to  do  by  his  very  full  abstract  of  the  for- 
mer, from  which  he  makes  copious  extracts.  In  the 
old  play,  when  King  Lear  disinherits  Cordelia,  he  says 
to  her,  — 

Peace,  bastard  impe,  no  issue  of  King  Leir, 
I  will  not  heare  thee  epeake  one  tittle  more. 
Call  me  not  father  if  thou  love  thy  life, 
Nor  these  thy  sisters  once  presume  to  name  : 
Looke  for  no  helpe  henceforth  from  me  or  mine  ; 
Shift  as  thou  wilt,  and  trust  unto  thyself. 

After  Lear,  Goneril,  and  Regan  have  gone  out,  Peril- 
lus,  the  Kent  of  the  old  play,  says,  — 

Oh,  how  I  grieve,  to  see  my  lord  thus  fond, 
To  dote  so  much  upon  vain  flattering  words! 
Ah,  if  he  but  with  good  advice  had  weigh'd 
The  hidden  tenure  of  her  humble  speech, 
Reason  to  rage  should  not  have  given  place, 
Nor  poor  Cordelia  suffer  such  disgrace. 


KING  LEAR.  217 

Let  the  reader  now  turn  to  Shakespeare's  play  (for  I 
cannot  spare  more  room  to  quotation),  and  read  Lear's 
speech  to  Cordelia,  beginning  — 

Let  it  be  so  :  thy  truth  then  be  thy  dower  — 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

and  the  after  broken  dialogue  between  Lear  and  Kent, 
—  that  splendid  tilt  between  tyranny  and  indepen- 
dence, in  which  independence  for  the  time  goes  under ; 
and  by  this  brief  comparison  he  will  find  the  great  al- 
though not  the  only  secret  of  Shakespeare's  power 
revealed.  It  will  be  seen  (and  ^it  is  important  to  re- 
mark) that  the  conception  of  the  scene  and  of  the 
feelings  and  opinions  of  the  personages  was  much  the 
same  in  the  writers  of  both  passages.  All  that  Shake- 
speare did  here  is  suggested  by  what  his  predecessor 
had  done.  But  the  work  of  one  is  trite,  common- 
place, dull,  flat,  stupid,  dead;  to  describe  worthily 
that  of  the  other,  in  its  fitness  to  the  strange,  rude 
scene,  in  its  revelation  of  the  emotions  of  the  speakers, 
and  above  all  in  its  exuberant  vitality,  would  require  a 
command  of  words  equal  to  that  of  him  who  wrote  it. 
There  is  no  other  so  grandly  fierce  an  altercation  to  be 
found  on  any  page.  The  mature  man  at  the  hun- 
dredth reading  finds  it  stir  his  blood  just  as  it  first 
did  when  the  downy  hair  of  his  cold  young  flesh  stood 
up,  as  he  felt  alternately  with  the  despotic  old  king 
and  with  his  bold,  faithful,  loving  servant. 

And  yet,  regarded  in  itself,  and  simply  on  its  merits, 
the  action  in  this  whole  scene,  excepting  that  of  Kent, 
is  so  unreasonable  and  unnatural  as  to  be  almost  ab- 
surd ;  yes,  quite  absurd.  The  King's  solicitation  of 
the  flattery  of  his  daughters  is  absurd,  unworthy  of  a 
reasonable  creature ;  the  flattery  of  the  elder  sisters  is 
nauseously  absurd ;  the  reserve  of  Cordelia  is  foolishly 


218  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

absurd ;  the  instant  change  of  feeling  in  the  king  is 
absurd  to  the  verge  of  incredibility.  But  for  this 
Shakespeare  is  not  responsible,  except  in  so  far  as  he 
is  made  so  by  the  choice  of  the  story.  For  all  this  is 
in  the  story ;  and  it  is  the  story  that  is  absurd,  not 
Shakespeare.  What  he  did  was  to  see  in  it  its  great 
capability  of  dramatic  treatment,  notwithstanding  its 
absurdity.  Lear's  purposed  division  of  his  kingdom, 
his  behavior  to  his  daughters  and  their  behavior  to 
him,  and  his  consequent  disinheritance  of  the  young- 
est are  a  postulate  which  is  not  to  be  questioned. 
They  are  absurd,  but  without  their  absurdity  there 
would  have  been  no  play.  Let  us  accept  their  absurd- 
ity, say  nothing,  and  be  thankful.  For  with  the  disin- 
heriting of  Cordelia  the  absurdity  stops  short ;  it  does 
not  last  one  moment  longer ;  it  does  not  infect  one  line 
of  any  subsequent  speech.  To  this  remark  there  is  one 
exception,  —  the  scene  in  which  Gloucester  is  deluded 
into  believing  that  he  has  thrown  himself  from  Dover 
cliff.  But  again,  this  incident  is  from  the  story  in 
Sidney's  "  Arcadia,"  which  Shakespeare  used.  True, 
he  develops  and  enriches  it,  and  gilds  its  absurdity  with 
crusted  gold  of  thought  and  language,  but  he  does  not 
essentially  change  it ;  giving  thus  (for  he  might  have 
omitted  this  incident  or  have  altered  it)  an  illustration 
of  his  habitual  copiousness  of  imagination  and  of 
fancy,  and  of  his  no  less  habitual  parsimony,  if  not 
of  his  poverty,  of  constructive  skill. 

In  its  first  scene  is  deployed  the  whole  potentiality 
of  the  tragedy.  The  germ  of  every  character,  the 
spring  of  every  dramatic  motive  developed  during  the 
whole  five  acts  is  to  be  found  there ;  and  every  per- 
sonage of  any  importance  is  there,  excepting  the  FooJ. 
and  the  legitimate  Edgar,  who  after  all  is  not  a  very 


KING   LEAR.  219 

important  or  a  very  dramatic  person,  and  who  is 
chiefly  interesting  to  that  part  of  an  audience  which 
likes  to  be  called  upon  to  sympathize  with  virtue  in 
distress,  and  to  have  its  curiosity  excited  by  seeing  a 
nobleman  in  the  disguise  of  a  beggar.  JEdgar  per- 
forms, however,  a  very  useful  function  as  a  provoca- 
tive to  the  half -insane  sententiousness  of  Lear  in  the 
hovel  and  at  the  farm-house  (Act  III.  Sc.  4  and  6), 
and  as  a  means  to  help  the  progress  of  the  play  and 
to  bring  it  to  a  close.  He  is  a  very  good  young  man  ; 
but,  like  many  other  good  young  men,  he  is  not  inter- 
esting in  himself ;  he  is  only  the  occasion  of  our  in- 
terest in  others.  The  drama  neither  rests  upon  him, 
nor  is  moved  by  him ;  and  yet  without  him  it  would 
halt. 

Among  all  the  personages  of  the  tragedy  who  take 
a  sufficient  part  in  the  action  to  fill  any  space  in  the 
mind's  eye  of  the  reader,  or  to  dwell  in  his  memory, 
Edgar  is  the  only  one  whose  character  and  conduct 
are  entirely  beyond  reproach.  For  in  this  play,  in 
which  from  its  first  scene  to  its  last  our  minds  are 
kept  upon  the  stretch  of  tense  anxiety,  the  people 
whose  hopes  and  fears  we  share  and  whose  woes  pierce 
us  with  a  personal  pang  are  no  model  men  and  women. 
Strength  and  weakness,  good  and  ill,  even  nobility  and 
meanness,  appear  in  them  side  by  side,  mingled  in 
varying  proportions.  Like  Lear's  hand,  they  all  smell 
of  mortality.  Some,  indeed,  as  Edmund,  Goneril, 
and  Regan,  are  mere  reptiles  or  wild  beasts  in  human 
form,  and  yet  even  these  are  not  allowed  to  go  entirely 
without  our  sympathy  ;  but  the  best  of  them,  Cordelia, 
is  infected  with  a  vice  of  soul  which  taints  her  whole 
being,  until  it  is  purged  thence  by  the  sorrow  with 
which  it  floods  her  loving  heart. 


220  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

The  first  scene  shows  us,  as  I  have  said,  the  char- 
acters of  all  these  personages  with  more  or  less  com- 
pleteness. The  very  first  sentence,  Kent's  speech,  "  I 
thought  the  king  had  more  affected  the  Duke  of  Al- 
bany than  Cornwall,"  shows  us  that  Lear  had  the  gift 
to  know  men,  as  the  subsequent  conduct  of  Albany 
and  Cornwall  proves.  Gloucester's  second  speech,  in 
regard  to  his  bastard  son  and  that  son's  mother,  reveals 
his  weakness,  the  sin  which  doth  most  easily  beset 
him,  and  no  less  the  frankness  of  his  nature,  his 
boldness  in  assuming  the  responsibility  of  his  acts,  his 
capacity  of  love  and  confidence.  Lear  comes  in,  and 
instantly  dominates  the  scene;  somewhat  because  of 
his  royalty  of  station,  but  far  more  because  of  his 
majesty  of  person  and  of  bearing.  At  once  his  grand 
figure  casts  a  shadow  that  lies  all  along  his  life  to  its 
dark  end.  We  readers  of  Shakespeare  know  that 
end ;  but  did  we  not  know  it,  could  we  fail  to  see,  or 
at  least  to  apprehend,  what  must  be  the  end  when 
that  haughty  heart,  as  loving  as  a  woman's  and  as 
weakly  exacting,  not  content  with  love  shown  in  life, 
but  craving  assurance  of  it  in  flattering  words,  strips 
itself  of  the  fact  of  royalty,  and,  hoping  to  retain  the 
semblance,  lays  itself  down  unshielded  by  a  crown 
before  the  claws  and  fangs  of  Goneril  and  Regan, 
those  she-monsters  of  a  dark  and  monster-bearing  age  ? 
The  man  who  detected  the  superior  nature  of  Albany 
in  the  two  suitors  who  were  recommending  themselves 
to  his  favor,  and  who  yet  could  be  wilfully  blind  to 
the  cruelty  and  selfishness  of  their  wives  because  they 
were  his  daughters,  and  who  could  turn  in  wrath  upon 
his  little  favorite,  his  last  and  least,  and  disinherit  her 
because  she  did  not  pour  out  in  fulsome  words  the  love 
which  he  knew  she  bore  him,  ethically  deserved  an  end 


KING  LEAR.  221 

of  grief,  and  was  psychologically  a  fit  subject  of  in- 
sanity. And  by  what  marvellous  untraceable  touch  of 
art  is  it  that  Shakespeare  has  conveyed  to  us  that 
Lear,  in  his  casting  off  Cordelia,  is  half  conscious  all 
the  while  that  he  is  doing  wrong  ?  The  intuitive  per- 
ception of  the  fitness  of  such  a  man  to  be  the  central 
figure  in  such  a  tragedy  as  this,  and  of  the  moral 
righteousness  of  the  afflictions  which  he  lays  upon  him 
and  the  sad  inevitableness  of  the  end  to  which  he 
brings  him,  is  a  manifestation  of  Shakespeare's  dra- 
matic genius  hardly  less  impressive  than  his  execution 
of  the  work  itself. 

*[  Lear,  although  of  a  kindly,  loving  nature,  and  in 
certain  aspects  very  grand  and  noble,  is  yet  largely 
capable  of  a  very  mean  passion,  revenge,  the  basest  of 
the  three  passions  —  the  others  being  pride,  and  its 
offspring  jealousy  —  which  cause  the  chief  misery  of 

.  human  life,  llevenge  says  not  to  the  wrongdoer,  — 
vYou  shall  do  me  right,  you  shall  make  restoration; 
those  are  the  words  of  justice  ;  but,  —  I  have  suffered, 
and  therefore  I  wish  you  to  suffer.  I  will  pray  in  my 
heart,  if  not  with  my  tongue,  that  you  may  suffer, 
and  if  I  have  my  opportunity  I  will  make  you  suffer 
at  my  own  hand,  although  I  know  that  this  will  do 
nothing  to  right  the  wrong  that  you  have  done.  This 
is  revenge.  Lear,  stung  by  the  ingratitude  of  Goneril, 
prays  openly,  and  manifestly  prays  with  his  whole 
heart,  that  she  may  undergo  all  the  sorrow  and  pain 
that  can  be  borne  by  woman.  It  is  frightful  to  hear 
this  old  man,  in  the  revulsion  of  feeling,  imprecate 
misery  illimitable  upon  his  own  daughter.  He  prays 
in  general  terms  for  inexpressible  anguish  to  fall  upon 
her ;  he  prays  for  particular  ills  and  pains  with  hor- 
rible and  almost  loathsome  specification :  — 


222  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

All  the  stor'd  vengeances  of  heaven  fall 

On  her  ingrateful  top  !     Strike  her  young  bones, 

You  taking  airs,  with  lameness  ! 

Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

He  has  before  this  poured  out  the  gall  of  his  bitterness 
upon  Goneril  herself  in  what  is  usually  called  his  curse. 
But  it  is  not  a  curse ;  it  is  a  prayer,  —  a  passionate 
plea  to  the  powers  of  nature  that  they  will  inflict  upon 
her  the  extreinest  agony  of  soul  that  can  be  felt  by 
woman.  He  asks  that  it  may  come  in  all  its  complete- 
ness ;  he  omits  nothing,  not  even  the  laughter  and  con- 
tempt that  women  feel  so  much  more  keenly  than  men 
do.  The  prayer  would  shock  and  revolt  the  whole 
world,  were  it  not  that  it  closes  with  those  lines  that 
cause  sympathy  to  flash  like  a  flame  from  the  hearts 
of  all  born  of  woman  :  — 

That  she  may  feel 

How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is 
To  have  a  thankless  child  ! 

Act  I.  Sc.  4. 

And  he  deliberately  threatens  revenge,  if  we  may  say 
that  after  Goneril's  treatment  of  him  he  does  anything 
deliberately :  — 

No,  you  unnatural  hags, 
I  will  have  such  revenges  on  you  both 
That  all  the  world  shall  —  I  will  do  such  things  — 
What  they  are  yet  I  know  not;  but  they  shall  be 
The  terrors  of  the  earth. 

Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

Poor  raving,  impotent  threatener,  menacing  others 
with  nameless  terrors  ;  himself  condemned  to  suffer 
the  extremity  of  grief  as  the  consequence  of  his  own 
folly,  and  to  die  with  just  enough  intellect  to  know 
the  utterness  of  his  misery ! 

His  very  insanity,  or  the  exciting  cause  of  his  in- 
sanity, Lear  brings  upon  himself.  For  he  is  not 
driven  out  into  the  storm,  or  driven  out  at  all ;  al- 


KING   LEAR.  223 

though  he  speaks,  and  leads  others  to  speak,  as  if  he 
were,  and  such  has  consequently  been  the  general  ver- 
dict. But  after  his  threat,  without  one  word  from 
Regan  or  from  Cornwall,  he  rushes  into  the  open,  and 
himself  seeks  in  the  storm  what  is  at  first  a  grateful 
and  sympathetic  companionship  of  turbulence  (Act 
III.  Sc.  2).  Regan  will  not  have  any  of  his  hundred 
knights,  but  she  will  take  him.  Detestable  as  she  and 
her  husband  are  in  their  stony,  cruel  selfishness,  we 
feel  that  so  far  as  the  King's  action  is  concerned, 
there  is  some  reason  in  what  they  say  when  he  turns 
his  back  upon  them  and  shelter  :  — 

Corn.  Let  us  withdraw;  't  will  be  a  storm. 

Meg.  The  house  is  little  :  the  old  man  and  's  people 
Cannot  be  well  bestow' d. 

Corn.  'Tis  his  own  blame;  '  hath  put  himself  from  rest 
And  must  needs  taste  his  folly. 

Reg.  For  his  particular,  I  'II  receive  him  gladly. 
But  not  one  follower. 

Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

Shakespeare  meant  that  this  should  be  considered,  and 
also  intentionally  made  Lear  by  exaggeration  misrep- 
resent his  treatment. 

And  this  brings  to  mind  that,  except  with  childish 
or  unthinking  readers,  the  two  elder  sisters  are  at  first 
not  altogether  without  reason  for  the  conduct  at  which 
he  rages  himself  into  frenzy.  His  proposed  sojourn 
with  them  alternately,  accompanied  by  a  retinue  of  a 
hundred  knights,  was  inherently  sure  to  breed  confu- 
sion and  disturbance.  Malicious  art  could  not  have 
devised  a  plan  better  fitted  to  bring  itself  to  an  end 
in  turmoil  and  exasperation.  It  is  with  some  sympa- 
thy with  Goneril  that  every  man  or  woman  of  family 
experience  hears  her  complaint  about  the  throng  of 
men,  "  so  disordered,  so  debosh'd  and  bold,"  that  they 
made  her  castle  "  seem  like  a  riotous  inn."  We  know 


224  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

that  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  And  yet  her 
father  at  once  breaks  forth,  "  Darkness  and  devils ! 
Saddle  my  horses  !  " 

There  is  no  justification  of  Lear's  conduct,  hardly 
any  excuse  for  it,  up  to  the  time  when  he  rushes  out 
into  the  storm.  He  was  not  insane  ;  he  had  not  even 
begun  to  be  insane  before  that  time ;  and  after  that 
time  we  may  almost  say  that  he  seeks  madness.  In  the 
fury  of  his  wrath  as  an  offended  king,  and  of  his  mor- 
bid grief  as  an  outraged  father,  his  intellect  commits 
a  sort  of  suicide.  As  other  men  throw  themselves  into 
the  water,  he  throws  himself  into  the  storm,  hoping  to 
find  oblivion  in  the  counter-irritation  of  its  severity. 
The  robustness  of  his  frame  and  the  strength  of  his 
will  sustain  him  for  a  while ;  and  it  is  his  old  brain 
which  first  gives  way,  —  as  he  felt  that  it  would,  and 
yet  was  reckless  of  the  danger. 

From  the  time  when  Lear  first  shows  signs  of  break- 
ing down,  which  is  in  the  scene  before  the  hovel  (Act 
III.  Sc.  4),  where  he  meets  Edgar  disguised  as  poor 
Tom,  I  abandon  all  attempt  to  follow  the  gradual  yet 
rapid  ruin  of  his  mind,  which,  like  some  strong  and 
stately  building  sapped  at  its  foundation,  first  cracks 
and  crumbles,  then  yawns  apart,  and  rushes  headlong 
down,  scattering  its  not  yet  quite  dismembered  beau- 
ties into  confused  heaps  ;  leaving  some  of  them  stand- 
ing in  all  their  majesty,  with  their  riven  interiors 
baldly  exposed  to  view.  Others  (but  I  know  them 
not)  may  have  the  words  in  which  to  picture  this  de- 
struction; but  I  confess  that  I  have  not,  except  in 
the  futile  way  of  recording  the  quickly  succeeding 
stages  of  the  catastrophe  and  cataloguing  the  items  of 
the  ruins. 

From  this  point  the  action  of  Lear's  mind  may  be 


KING  LEAR.  225 

apprehended,  may  even  be  comprehended,  but  to  any 
good  purpose,  it  seems  to  me,  neither  analyzed  nor  de- 
scribed. I  can  only  contemplate  it  in  silence,  fasci- 
nated by  its  awf ulness  and  by  what  all  must  feel  to  be 
its  truth.  For  the  strange  inexplicable  power  of  this 
sad  spectacle  is  that  we  who  have  not  been  insane  like 
Lear,  although  like  him  we  may  have  been  foolish  and 
headstrong,  yet  know  that  here  is  a  true  representa- 
tion of  the  wreck  of  a  strong  nature,  which  has  not 
fallen  into  decay,  but  has  been  rent  into  fragments. 
In  the  preceding  scene  Lear  is  not  insane.  The 
speech  beginning,  — 

Let  the  great  gods 

That  keep  this  dreadful  pother  o'er  our  heads 
Find  out  their  enemies  now, 

merely  shows  the  tension  of  a  mind  strained  to  the  last 
pitch  of  possible  endurance,  like  a  string  upon  a  mu- 
sical instrument  which  is  stretched  to  the  very  point 
of  breaking.  But  the  string  is  not  yet  broken ;  the 
instrument  is  still  in  tune.  These  words  at  the  close 
of  the  speech,  — 

I  am  a  man 

More  sinned  against  than  sinning, 

show  that  the  speaker  is  still  capable  of  a  logical  de- 
fence of  his  own  actions ;  and  his  next  utterance,  "  My 
wits  begin  to  turn,"  is  evidence  that  they  have  not  yet 
turned.  Men  who  are  insane  believe  that  they  alone 
are  reasonable ;  and  when  Lear  at  last  is  crazed  he 
makes  no  allusion  to  the  condition  of  his  intellect. 
When,  at  the  end  of  this  act,  he  returns  to  the  feeble 
semblance  of  himself,  in  that  pathetic  passage  in  which 
he  recognizes  Cordelia,  he  says,  "  I  fear  I  am  not  in 
my  perfect  mind,"  —  a  sure  sign  that  his  mind,  al- 
though at  once  senile  and  childish,  is  no  longer  dis- 
tracted. 

15 


226  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

After  this  he  sinks  rapidly ;  but  in  his  speech  to 
Cordelia,  when  they  are  brought  in  prisoners,  in  which 
he  says  that  they  will  sing  in  prison  "  like  birds  in  a 
cage,"  and  "  laugh  at  gilded  butterflies,"  he  has  not  be- 
come again  insane.  The  tone  of  his  mind  has  gone ; 
he  has  passed  even  the  pride  of  manliness,  and  has 
fallen  to  a  point  at  which  he  can  look  upon  the  rem- 
nants of  his  former  self  without  anger,  and  even  with  a 
gentle  pity.  Of  all  the  creations  of  dramatic  art  this 
is  the  most  marvellous.  Art  it  must  be,  and  yet  art 
inexplicable.  We  might  rather  believe  that  Shake- 
speare, when  he  was  writing  these  scenes,  could  say  in 
Milton's  phrase,  Myself  am  Lear.  Strangest,  per- 
haps, of  all  is  the  sustained  royalty  of  Lear's  madness. 
For  Lear,  mad  or  sane,  is  always  kingly.  His  very 
faults  are  those  of  a  good-natured  tyrant ;  and  in  his 
darkest  hours  his  wrongs  sit  crowned  and  robed  upon 
a  throne.  In  looking  upon  his  disintegrated  mind,  it 
is  no  common  structure  that  we  see  cast  down  ;  it  is  a 
palace  that  lies  before  our  eyes  in  ruins,  —  a  palace, 
with  all  its  splendor,  its  garniture  of  sweet  and  deli- 
cate beauty,  and  its  royal  and  imposing  arrogance  of 
build. 

To  us  of  the  present  day  who  have  a  just  apprecia- 
tion of  "  King  Lear  "  it  is  unactable,  as  Lamb  has  said 
already.  It  stands  upon  too  lofty  a  plane ;  its  emo- 
tions are  too  mountainous  to  be  within  the  reach  of 
mimic  art.  The  efforts  of  actors  of  flesh  and  blood 
to  represent  it  are  as  futile  as  the  attempts  of  the  stage 
carpenter  to  represent  that  tempest  with  the  rattling 
of  his  sheet-iron  and  the  rumble  of  his  cannon-balls. 
Nor  has  there  been  any  actor  in  modern  days  who 
united  in  himself  the  person  and  the  art  required  for 
the  presentation  of  our  ideal  of  King  Lear.  Gar- 


KING   LEAR.  227 

rick  was  too  small ;  Kean  too  fiery  and  gypsy-like ; 
Kemble  was  physically  fit  for  it,  but  too  cold  and  ar- 
tificial. As  to  any  of  the  later  actors,  it  is  needless 
to  describe  the  unfitness  which  they  themselves  have 
so  ably  illustrated. 

Lear's  daughters  form  a  trio  that  live  in  our  minds 
like  three  figures  of  the  old  mythology.  My  own  ac- 
quaintance with  "  King  Lear  "  began  at  a  time  when 
fairy  stories  had  not  lost  their  interest  for  me,  —  if 
indeed  they  have  lost  it,  or  will  ever  lose  it,  —  and  I 
associated  Cordelia  and  her  sisters  with  Cinderella 
and  her  sisters,  and  the  likeness  still  lingers  with  me. 
Perhaps  there  is  no  other  similarity  than  the  cruel 
selfishness  of  the  two  elder  women  and  the  sweet  and 
tender  beauty  of  the  youngest  in  both  stories.  And 
Cordelia,  with  all  her  gentle  loveliness  and  charm,  the 
influence  of  which  pervades  the  play  as  the  perfume 
of  a  hidden  lily  of  the  valley  pervades  the  surround- 
ing air,  had  one  great  fault,  which  is  the  spring  of  all 
the  woes  of  this  most  woful  of  all  tragedies.  That 
fault  was  pride,  the  passion  which  led  to  the  first  re- 
corded murder.  Her  pride  revolted  when  she  saw 
her  royal  father  accept  the  oblation  of  her  sisters' 
false-hearted  flattery ;  and  she  shrank  from  laying 
down  the  offering  of  her  true  affection  upon  the  altar 
which  she  felt  they  had  profaned.  When,  like  Cain, 
she  saw  that  her  sacrifice  was  rejected,  she  let  her 
pride  come  between  her  and  the  father  whom  she  so 
fondly  loved.  It  was  her  pride  and  her  determina- 
tion to  subdue  her  rivals,  as  much  as  her  filial  affec- 
tion, that  led  her  to  invade  her  country  with  a  foreign 
army,  to  restore  him  to  his  throne.  And  with  her 
pride  went  its  often  attendant,  a  propensity  to  satire, 
the  unloveliest  trait  that  can  mar  a  lovely  woman's 
character. 


228  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

When,  in  the  first  scene,  she  demurely  says, 

The  jewels  of  our  father,  with  wash'd  eyes 
Cordelia  leaves  you  :  I  know  you  what  you  are,  etc., 

we  feel  that  it  is  sharply  said,  but  also  that  it  might 
better  have  been  left  unsaid ;  and  we  sympathize  a 
little  with  Regan  in  her  retort,  "  Prescribe  not  us  our 
duties,"  and  with  Goneril  in  hers,  that  Cordelia  may 
now  best  turn  her  attention  to  pleasing  the  husband 
who  has  received  her  "  at  fortune's  alms."  Plutarch 
tells  us  rightly  that  ill  deeds  are  forgiven  sooner  than 
sharp  words.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  Cordelia's 
pride  stands  her  in  good  stead  when,  in  Hudson's 
happy  phrase,  "  she  so  promptly  switches  off  her  hig- 
gling suitor  "  with  — 

Peace  be  with  Burgundy  ; 
Since  that  respects  of  fortune  are  his  love, 
I  shall  not  be  his  wife. 

But  her  pride  and  her  speech  to  her  sisters  helped  to 
destroy  her  father,  and  to  put  a  halter  round  her  own 
neck. 

Edmund  suggests  lago ;  but,  with  other  minor  differ- 
ences, —  differences  of  person  and  of  manner,  —  there 
is  this  great  unlikeness  between  them :  Edmund  is 
not  spontaneously  vile.  His  baseness  and  cruelty  have 
an  origin  not  only  comprehensible,  but  with  the  bonds 
of  a  certain  sort  of  sympathy.  It  was  not  his  fault 
that  he  was  illegitimate.  He  was  no  less  his  father's 
son  than  Edgar  was  ;  and  yet  he  found  himself  with 
a  branded  stigma  upon  his  name.  This  is  not  even  a 
palliation  of  his  villainy ;  but  it  is  a  motive  for  it  that 
may  be  understood.  If  Edmund  had  been  born  in 
wedlock,  he  would  still  have  been  a  bad  man  at  heart  ; 
but  he  might  have  lived  a  reputable  life  and  have 
done  little  harm.  There  are  more  such  reputable 
men  than  we  suspect.  As  it  is,  he  uses  all  his  gifts 


KING   LEAR.  229 

of  mind  and  of  person  to  gain  his  selfish  ends.  He' 
has  great  ability  and  no  scruples,  —  absolutely  none. 
When  these  qualities  are  combined,  as  in  him  they 
were  combined  with  a  fine  person  and  attractive 
manners  (and  as  they  also  were  combined  in  lago), 
the  resulting  power  for  evil  is  incalculable,  almost  un- 
limited. Both  the  sisters  feel  Edmund's  personal  at- 
traction, and  respect  his  courage  and  enterprising 
spirit ;  and  the  astute  Cornwall  sees  his  ability,  and 
says  to  him,  "  Natures  of  such  deep  trust  we  shall 
much  need."  He  has  a  touch  of  man's  nature  in  him 
that  is  absent  in  lago.  He  prizes  the  preference  of 
women.  When  he  is  dying,  slain  by  Edgar,  and 
the  bodies  of  Goneril  and  Regan  are  brought  in,  he 
says,  — 

Yet  Edmund  was  beloved  ; 
The  one  the  other  poisoned  for  my  sake, 
And  after  slew  herself. 

Act  V.  Sc.  3. 

And,  as  if  brought  by  this  feminine  influence,  bad  as 
it  was,  within  the  range  of  human  affections,  he  in- 
stantly does  all  that  he  can  to  stay  the  execution  of 
his  sentence  of  death  upon  Lear  and  Cordelia.  lago 
goes  out,  a  cold-blooded,  malignant  villain  to  the  last. 

And  this  suggests  to  me  Shakespeare's  effort  to 
mitigate  the  horrors  of  that  revolting  scene  in  which 
Gloucester's  eyes  are  torn  out.  The  voice  of  humanity, 
otherwise  stifled  there,  is  heard  in  the  speech  and  em- 
bodied in  the  action  of  the  serving-man,  who,  with 
words  that  recall  those  of  Kent  to  Lear  in  the  first 
scene,  breaks  in  upon  his  master,  fights  him,  kills 
him,  and  is  himself  slain  by  the  hand  of  Regan,  —  an 
outburst  of  manhood  which  is  a  great  relief.  Al- 
though Shakespeare  found  the  incident  of  the  loss  of 
Gloucester's  eyes  in  the  old  story,  and  used  it  in  a 


230  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

way  which  illustrated  at  once  the  savage  manners  of 
the  time  in  which  his  tragedy  was  supposed  to  be 
acted  and  the  cruelty  of  Cornwall  and  Regan,  he  in- 
tuitively shrank  from  leaving  the  scene  in  its  other- 
wise bare  and  brutal  hideousness. 

One  personage  of  importance  remains  who  cannot 
be  passed  by  unconsidered  in  an  attempt  to  appre- 
ciate this  drama.  It  needs  hardly  to  be  said  that  this 
is  the  Fool.  What  Shakespeare  did  not  do,  as  well  as 
what  he  did  do,  as  a  playwright  has  no  better  proof 
or  illustration  than  in  his  Fools.  He  did  not  invent 
the  personage ;  he  found  it  on  the  stage.  Indeed  he 
invented  nothing ;  he  added  nothing  to  the  drama  as 
he  found  it ;  he  made  nothing,  not  even  the  story  of 
one  of  his  own  plays ;  he  created  nothing,  save  men 
and  women,  and  Ariels  and  Calibans.  What  he  did 
with  the  Fool  was  this.  This  personage  is  the  result- 
ant compound  of  the  Vice,  a  rude  allegorical  person- 
age constantly  in  the  old  Moral  Plays,  with  the  court 
jester.  He  was  a  venter  of  coarse  and  silly  ribaldry, 
and  a  player  of  practical  jokes.  Only  so  far  back  as 
the  time  of  Shakespeare's  boyhood,  the  Fool's  part 
was  in  most  cases  not  written,  and  at  the  stage  direc- 
tion, "  Stultus  loquitur  "  (the  Fool  speaks)  he  per- 
formed his  function  extempore;  and  thus  he  con- 
tinued to  jape  and  to  caper  for  the  diversion  of  those 
who  liked  horse-play  and  ribaldry.  But  Shakespeare 
saw  that  the  grinning  toad  had  a  jewel  in  his  head, 
and  touching  him  with  his  transforming  pen  shows 
him  to  us  as  he  appears  in  "  As  You  Like  It,"  in 
"Twelfth  Night,"  in  «  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well," 
and  last  of  all,  and  greatest,  in  "  King  Lear." 

In  this  tragedy  the  Fool  rises  to  heroic  proportions, 
as  he  must  have  risen  to  be  in  keeping  with  his  sur- 


KING  LEAR.  231 

roundings.  He  has  wisdom  enough  to  stock  a  college 
of  philosophers,  —  wisdom  which  has  come  from  long 
experience  of  the  world  without  responsible  relations 
to  it.  For  plainly  he  and  Lear  have  grown  old  to- 
gether. The  king  is  much  the  older;  but  the  Fool 
has  the  marks  of  time  upon  his  face  as  well  as  upon 
his  mind.  They  have  been  companions  since  he  was 
a  boy ;  and  Lear  still  calls  him  b'oy  and  lad,  as  he 
did  when  he  first  learned  to  look  kindly  upon  his 
young,  loving,  half-distraught  companion.  The  rela- 
tions between  them  have  plainly  a  tenderness  which, 
knowingly  to  both,  is  covered,  but  not  hidden,  by  the 
grotesque  surface  of  the  Fool's  official  function.  His 
whole  soul  is  bound  up  in  his  love  for  Lear  and  for 
Cordelia.  He  would  not  set  his  life  "  at  a  pin's  fee  " 
to  serve  his  master ;  and  when  his  young  mistress  goes 
to  France  he  pines  away  for  the  sight  of  her.  When 
the  King  feels  the  consequences  of  his  headstrong 
folly,  the  Fool  continues  the  satirical  comment  which 
he  begins  when  he  offers  Kent  his  coxcomb.  So  might 
Touchstone  have  done ;  but  in  a  vein  more  cynical, 
colder,  and  without  that  undertone  rather  of  sweet- 
ness than  of  sadness  which  tells  us  that  this  jester  has 
a  broken  heart. 

About  the  middle  of  the  play  the  Fool  suddenly  dis- 
appears, making,  in  reply  to  Lear's  remark,  "  We  '11 
go  to  supper  in  the  morning,"  the  fitting  rejoinder, 
44  And  I  '11  go  to  bed  at  noon."  Why  does  he  not  re- 
turn ?  Clearly  for  this  reason ;  he  remains  with  Lear 
during  his  insanity,  to  answer  in  antiphonic  commen- 
tary the  mad  king's  lofty  ravings  with  his  simple  wit 
and  homespun  wisdom ;  but  after  that  time,  when  Lear 
sinks  from  frenzy  into  forlorn  imbecility,  the  Fool's 
utterances  would  have  jarred  upon  our  ears.  The 


232  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

situation  becomes  too  grandly  pathetic  to  admit  the 
presence  of  a  jester,  who,  unless  he  is  professional,  is 
nothing.  Even  Shakespeare  could  not  make  sport 
with  the  great  primal  elements  of  woe.  And  so  the 
poor  Fool  sought  the  little  corner  where  he  slept  the 
last  time  — functus  officio. 

I  see  that  in  the  last  paragraph  I  am  inconsistent ; 
attributing  to  Shakespeare,  first,  a  deliberate  artistic 
purpose,  and  then,  with  regard  to  the  same  object,  a 
dramatic  conception,  the  offspring  of  sentiment.  Let 
the  inconsistency  stand  ;  it  becomes  him  of  whom  it  is 
spoken.  Shakespeare  was  mightily  taken  hold  of  by 
these  creatures  of  his  imagination,  and  they  did  be- 
fore his  eyes  what  he  did  not  at  first  intend  that  they 
should  do.  True,  his  will  was  absolute  over  his  genius, 
which  was  subject  to  him,  not  he  to  it ;  but  like  a 
wizard  he  was  sometimes  obsessed  by  the  spirits  which 
he  had  willingly  called  up.  In  none  of  his  dramas  is 
this  attitude  of  their  author  so  manifest  as  in  this,  the 
largest  in  conception,  noblest  in  design,  richest  in  sub- 
stance, and  highest  in  finish  of  all  his  works,  and  which, 
had  he  written  it  alone  (if  we  can  suppose  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  sole  production),  would  have  set  him 
before  all  succeeding  generations,  the  miracle  of  time. 


STAGE    ROSALINDS. 


MOST  readers  of  Shakespeare  have  a  very  clear  ideal 
of  Rosalind.  They  may  be  in  doubt  as  to  the  physi- 
cal and  mental  traits  of  others  of  his  women,  —  Lady 
Macbeth,  Beatrice,  Portia,  or  even  Juliet;  but  the 
heroine  of  "  As  You  Like  It "  lives  in  their  eyes  as 
well  as  in  their  hearts  and  minds,  a  very  firmly  and 
deeply  engraven  personage.  This  is  partly  because 
Shakespeare  himself  has  done  so  much  more  to  help 
us  in  forming  a  conception  of  Rosalind  than  he  has 
done  in  regard  to  any  other  of  his  women,  except  Imo- 
gen. For  it  is  worthy  of  special  remark  that  he  has 
given  us  hardly  a  hint  as  to  his  own  idea  of  the  per- 
sonal appearance,  or  even  of  the  mental  and  moral 
constitution,  of  these  prominent  figures  of  his  dramatis 
personcB.  We  are  left  to  make  all  this  out  for  our- 
selves from  their  actions  and  their  words,  or  from  the 
impression  which  they  make  upon  those  by  whom  he 
has  surrounded  them.  This,  indeed,  is  the  dramatic 
way.  As  the  dramatist  never  speaks  in  his  own  per- 
son, he  must  needs  describe  by  the  lips  of  others ;  but 
those  others  are  beings  of  his  own  creation,  and  he  can 
make  them  say  what  he  pleases,  the  one  about  the 
others.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  a  poet  could  hardly 
fail  to  delight  his  own  sense  of  beauty  by  putting  into 
the  mouth  of  some  of  his  personages  descriptions  of 
the  charms  of  the  women  around  whom  centres  so 


234  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

much  of  the  interest  of  mimic  life  upon  the  stage ; 
that  he  would,  as  fitly  he  might,  at  least  cause  his 
lovers  to  tell  us  something  of  the  womanly  beauty  and 
the  womanly  charm  by  which  they  have  been  en- 
thralled. 

Many  dramatists  have  done  this,  but  not  Shake- 
speare. He  was  content  to  show  us  his  women  as  they 
lived,  and  loved,  and  suffered,  and  came  at  last  to  joy 
in  their  love,  or  to  grief,  —  one  of  them,  in  her  ambi- 
tion. And  it  would  seem  that  he  did  this  simply  be- 
cause he  did  not  care  to  do  otherwise ;  because  he  had 
not  himself  any  very  precise  conception  as  to  particu- 
lar details  of  person,  or  even  of  character,  as  to  most 
of  his  women.  He  took  an  old  play,  or  an  old  story, 
the  incidents  of  which  he  thought  would  interest  a 
mixed  audience,  and  this  he  worked  over  into  a  new 
dramatic  form,  making  it,  quite  unconsciously,  and  al- 
together without  purpose,  scene  by  scene  and  line  by 
line,  immortal  by  his  psychological  insight  and  the 
magic  of  his  style.  If  the  action  marched  on  well, 
and  the  personages  and  the  situations  were  interesting, 
he  was  content ;  and  he  concentrated  such  effort  as  he 
made  —  making  very  little,  for  he  wrote  his  plays  with 
a  heedless  ease  which  is  without  a  parallel  in  the  his- 
tory of  literature  —  upon  the  scene  immediately  in 
hand,  without  much  thought  as  to  what  had  gone  be- 
fore or  what  was  to  come  after.  That  was  determined 
for  him  mostly  by  the  story  or  the  play  which  he  had 
chosen  to  work  upon ;  and  the  splendid  whole  which 
he  sometimes,  but  not  always,  made,  was  the  unpre- 
meditated and,  I  am  sure,  the  almost  unconscious  re- 
sult of  an  inborn  instinct  of  dramatic  effect  of  the 
highest  kind,  and  an  intuitive  perception  of  what 
would  touch  the  soul  and  stir  the  blood  of  common 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  235 

healthy  human  nature.  These  were  his  only  motives, 
his  only  purposes.  For  all  that  we  know  of  his  life 
and  of  his  dramatic  career  leaves  no  room  for  doubt 
that,  if  his  public  had  preferred  it,  he  would  have 
written  thirty-seven  plays  like  "  Titus  Andronicus  " 
just  as  readily,  although  not  just  as  willingly,  as  he 
wrote  "As  You  Like  It,"  "  King  Lear,"  "Hamlet," 
and  "  Othello."  Therefore  it  was  —  to  return  to  our 
first  point — that  he  did  not  trouble  himself  to  paint 
us  portraits  of  his  heroines.  That  he  should  do  so 
was  not  down  on  his  dramatic  brief :  his  audiences 
were  interested,  and  therefore  he  was  interested,  chief- 
ly, if  not  only,  in  the  story  that  was  to  be  set  forth  in 
action. 

How  bare  his  dramas  are  of  personal  description 
will  hardly  be  believed  by  those  who  have  not  read 
them  carefully,  with  an  eye  to  this  particular.  He 
shows  us,  as  I  have  remarked  before,  the  effect  which 
his  personages  produced  upon  each  other ;  but  he  says 
very  little  of  the  means  by  which  the  effect  was  pro- 
duced ;  and  this  is  more  remarkable  as  to  his  women 
than  as  to  his  men,  because  we  naturally  expect  in  a 
poet  or  a  novelist  a  greater  interest  in  the  personal  at- 
tractions of  women.  But  Shakespeare  passes  all  this 
by  in  generalities.  Romeo  says  tha,t  Juliet's  beauty 
44  teaches  the  torches  to  burn  bright  "  that  it  "  hangs 
upon  the  cheek  of  night  like  a  rich  jewel  in  an  Ethiop's 
ear ;  "  the  love-sick  Duke  in  "  Twelfth  Night  "  says  that 
Olivia  was  so  beautiful  that  he  "  thought  she  purged 
the  air  of  pestilence  :  "  but  neither  of  these  enamored 
men  says  a  word,  or  drops  a  hint,  to  tell  us  whether 
these  wondrous  women  were  fair  or  dark,  or  tall  or 
short,  —  whether  they  were  formed  like  fairies  or  like 
the  Venus  of  Melos.  Of  Portia  we  know,  by  a  chance 


236  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

line,  that  she  was  golden-haired ;  but  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  even  this  touch  of  personal  description 
was  not  suggested  by  the  auri  sacra  fames  of  the  for- 
tune-hunting adventurer  who  wins  the  beautiful  heir- 
ess rather  than  by  the  desire  to  give  a  touch  of  color 
to  the  picture  of  the  heroine.1 

It  is  only  when  Shakespeare  comes  to  paint  the  love- 
liest and  most  perfect  of  all  his  women,  Imogen,  who 
indeed  seems  to  have  been  both  his  idol  and  his  ideal, 
that  he  describes  the  beauty  of  which  Leonatus  is 
the  hardly  deserving  possessor.  And  yet,  even  here 
again,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  his  unwonted 
particularity  in  this  respect  is  not  the  mere  conse- 
quence of  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  domestic  story 
that  is  interwoven  with  the  political  drama  of  Cymbe- 
iine,  King  of  Britain.  Imogen's  beauty  must  be 
described,  because  it  is  partly  the  occasion  of  the 
wager  which  is  the  spring  of  the  love  action  of  the 
drama ;  because  it  impresses  her  unknown  brothers  ; 
and  because  some  particular  knowledge  of  it  is  ob- 
tained by  the  villain  of  the  play,  "  the  yellow  la- 
chimo,"  and  is  descanted  on  by  him  as  proof  of  his 
boasted  success  in  his  assault  upon  her  chastity. 

Rosalind's  beauty  was  different  from  Imogen's; 
more  splendid  and  impressive,  if  perhaps  less  tender 
and  cherubic.  Unless  I  am  in  error,  we  all  think  of 
Imogen  as  rather  a  little  below  than  above  the  stand- 
ard height  of  woman's  stature.  Rosalind  was  notably 
tall ;  a  girl  who  at  middle  age  would  become  magnifi- 
cent. She  was  fair,  with  dark  lustrous  hair,  and  eyes 
perhaps  blue,  gray,  or  perhaps  black,  according  as  the 

1  And  her  sunny  locks 
Hang  on  her  temples  like  a  golden  fleece ; 
Which  makes  her  seat  of  Belmont  Colchos'  strand, 
And  many  Jasons  come  in  quest  of  her. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  237 

man  who  thinks  of  her  has  eyes  black,  brown,  or  blue  ; 
but  I  am  pretty  sure  that  they  were  of  that  dark  olive 
green  which  has  all  the  potentiality  of  both  blue  and 
black,  and  which  is  apt  to  accompany  natures  which 
combine  all  the  sensuous  and  mental  charms  that  are 
possible  in  woman.  She  was  of  a  robust  —  yet  firm  and 
elastic  rather  than  robust  —  physical  and  moral  nature ; 
her  vigor  and  her  spring  being,  nevertheless,  tempered 
by  a  delicacy  of  rare  fineness,  which  had  its  source 
in  sentiment,  —  sentiment  equally  tender  and  healthy. 
Such  was  the  woman  who  is  the  central  figure  of  the 
most  charming  ideal  comedy  in  all  dramatic  literature. 
Shakespeare's  plays  were  written  with  a  single  eye 
to  their  presentation  on  the  stage.  They  attained 
with  great  distinction  the  objective  point  of  their  pro- 
duction. Their  author,  known  to  the  world  now  as 
the  greatest  of  poets,  and  the  subtlest,  profoundest, 
and  truest  observer  of  man  and  of  the  world,  was 
known  to  the  public  of  London  in  his  own  day  chiefly 
as  the  most  successful  and  popular  of  playwrights. 
His  plays  were  performed  to  full  houses,  when  those 
by  the  best  of  his  fellow  dramatists  hardly  paid  the 
expenses  of  production.  We  may  be  sure  that  in 
writing  them,  and  in  superintending  the  placing  them 
on  the  stage  (which  doubtless  fell  to  his  hands),  he 
was  undisturbed  by  that  lofty  ideal  of  signification 
and  of  character  which  now  makes  their  worthy  per- 
formance, for  his  most  loving  students  and  admirers, 
in  some  cases  almost  impossible.  "King  Lear," 
"Hamlet,"  "Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  "The  Tem- 
pest," and  we  might  almost  say  "  Romeo  and  Juliet  " 
are  now  lifted  too  high  into  the  realms  of  fancy  and 
imagination  to  be  within  the  reach  of  any  actor  whose 
merely  human  voice  rivals  the  dialogue  "  'twixt  his 


238  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

stretched  footing  and  the  scaffoldage."  The  comedies 
are  more  within  the  reach  of  ordinary  human  en- 
deavor ;  for  comedy  moves  upon  a  lower  plane,  deals 
with  commoner  and  humbler  events  of  man's  life  ex- 
periences. But,  among  the  comedies,  some  of  the 
most  charming  involve  in  their  proper  presentation  a 
perplexity  which  is  of  a  purely  physical  nature.  Con- 
spicuous among  these  are  his  two  most  beautiful  works 
in  ideal  comedy,  "  As  You  Like  It "  and  "  Twelfth 
Night."  The  difficulty  in  question  is  caused  by  the 
fact  that  in  these  comedies  the  heroines  appear  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  play  in  male  attire ;  and  that 
not  only  do  they  go  about  before  us  dressed  as  men 
and  acting  as  men,  but  appear  to  their  lovers  as  men, 
and  deceive  them,  almost  from  Enter  to  Exeunt.  Of 
these  plays,  "  As  You  Like  It  "  presents  the  greatest 
difficulty  of  this  kind,  and  with  that  we  shall  now 
chiefly  concern  ourselves. 

It  is  first  to  be  said,  however,  that  for  this  contriv- 
ance for  the  production  of  dramatic  movement  and  the 
exciting  of  dramatic  interest  the  author  is  not  properly 
responsible.  He  found  these  incidents  and  these  en- 
tanglements in  the  stories  which  he  undertook  to 
dramatize,  and  which  he  chose  because  they  were 
already  in  favor  with  the  public  he  sought  to  please. 
The  masquerading  of  a  young  woman  in  man's  attire 
was  a  favorite  device  with  all  the  story-writers  and 
play-writers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  whose  works 
Shakespeare  found  the  material  for  most  of  his 
dramas. l  "  As  You  Like  It  "  is  built  out  of  the 
material  of  one  of  these  stories  ;  rather,  indeed,  it  is 
one  of  these  stories  made  playable  by  Shakespeare's 

1  Remark,  for  example,  all  the  love  tales  told  in  the  course  of  Don 
Quixote. 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  239 

skill  as  a  dramatist,  and  lifted  by  him  unconsciously 
into  the  realms  of  immortality  by  his  poetic  uplook  and 
his  sweet  and  universal  sympathy.  Almost  whether 
he  would  or  would  not,  he  was  obliged  to  make  his 
heroine  go  through  her  prolonged  parade  of  sexual 
deception. 

And  now  to  consider  this  in  regard  to  its  possibility  : 
first,  for  Shakespeare's  audience  ;  next,  as  the  Scotch 
lassie  wished  her  partner  to  consider  love,  "  in  the 
aibstract."  Briefly,  the  case  is  this :  Rosalind  meets 
Orlando  in  the  orchard  of  the  Duke's  palace,  talks 
with  him,  sees  him  wrestle,  talks  with  him  again,  falls 
in  love  with  him,  and  captivates  him  by  her  beauty 
and  her  grace,  and  by  that  subtle  emanation  of  her 
sex's  power  when  moved  by  love  which  is  one  of  its 
strongest  and  most  enchaining  influences.  She  leaves 
him  so  under  the  influence  of  her  personality  that, 
stirred  by  all  these  motives,  and  by  the  sympathy  of 
such  a  woman  in  his  moody  and  desperate  condition, 
he  loves  her  before  they  meet  again.  Within  a  few 
days  they  do  meet  in  the  Forest  of  Arden  ;  he  in  his 
proper  person  ;  she  in  the  person  of  a  saucy  young 
fellow,  who  is  living  a  half -rural,  half-hunter  life  on 
the  edge  of  the  Forest.  There  she  encounters  him  on 
many  occasions,  during  what  must  have  been  a  con- 
siderable period  of  time,  some  ten  days  or  a  fortnight ; 
and  there,  also,  she  meets  her  father,  the  banished 
Duke,  and  Jaques,  a  cynical  old  gentleman,  of  much 
and  not  very  clean  worldly  experience.  By  none  of 
these  persons  is  her  sex  suspected.  She  even  whee- 
dles Orlando  into  playing,  like  child's  play,  that  she  is 
his  Rosalind ;  and  all  the  while  it  never  enters  his 
head  that  this  pretty,  wayward,  wilful,  witty  lad  is 
the  beautiful  woman  whose  eyes  and  lips  won  him  to 


240  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

return  the  love  that  she  had  given  him  unasked.  Now 
this  is  simply  impossible ;  absolutely  impossible  ;  phys- 
ically impossible  ;  morally  impossible  ;  outrageously 
impossible.  It  is  an  affront  to  common  sense,  a  defi- 
ance to  the  evidence  of  our  common  senses ;  impossible 
now,  impossible  then,  impossible  ever,  —  unless  under 
the  conditions  which  Shakespeare  prescribes  for  it, 
which  conditions  are  violated  by  every  Rosalind  that 
I  ever  saw  upon  the  stage,  and  most  of  all  by  the  last 
of  them,  who  not  only  erred  in  this  respect  with  all  her 
sisters,  but  who,  among  the  many  bad  Rosalinds  that 
I  have  seen,  was  indisputably  the  worst.1 

In  judging  of  what  Shakespeare  did  in  "  As  You 
Like  It,"  and  other  plays  of  similar  construction,  we 
must  first  of  all  take  into  consideration  the  conditions 
under  which  he  wrote.  The  most  important  of  these 
from  our  present  point  of  view  is  that,  in  his  day, 
there  were  no  actresses  upon  the  stage  ;  all  women's 
parts,  3roung  and  old,  were  played  by  men.  This  was 
added  to  the  marvel  of  his  creation  of  enchanting 
womanhood,  —  that  he  was  writing  those  women's 
words  for  actors  who  had  to  be  shaved  before  they 
were  ready  to  go  on  with  their  parts.  But  in  plays 
like  "  As  You  Like  it "  the  complication  was  yet 
greater.  There  was  a  double  inversion.  His  woman's 

1  And  yet  this  lady  is  singularly  endowed  with  all  the  physical  traits 
required  for  an  ideal  Rosalind.  I  would  not  publicly  blazon  her  beau- 
ties and  catalogue  her  charms ;  nor  on  the  other  hand  point  with  invid- 
ious finger  at  deficiencies  and  superfluities  that  make  us  wonder  what 
must  be  the  common  standard  of  the  country  in  which  she,  aspukherrima, 
bears  off  the  golden  apple.  I  shall  only  say  that  both  above  and  below 
the  waist,  in  its  upper  as  well  as  its  lower  limbs,  her  figure  is  notably  like 
that  of  a  fine,  well-grown  lad;  and  that  her  face,  even  in  the  wonderful 
setting  of  the  jewel  eyes,  which  with  the  line  of  the  nose  is  the  finest  part 
of  it,  might  well  be  that  of  an  uncommonly  pretty  young  fellow  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  or  Anglo-Norman  blood. 


STAGE  ROSALINDS.  241 

words,  his  self-revealing,  almost  self-creating  woman's 
words,  were  to  be  spoken  not  only  by  a  man  pretend- 
ing to  be  a  woman,  but  by  a  man  pretending  to  be  a 
woman  who  pretended  to  be  a  man.  Shakespeare, 
however,  was  surely  troubled  by  nothing  of  this.  He 
struck  right  at  the  heart  of  things,  and  made  his  wo- 
man for  us  as  she  lived  in  his  imagination.  Whether 
Anne  Page  was  to  be  presented  by  an  Anne  Page,  or 
by  a  lubberly  postmaster's  boy,  or  whether  she  was  not 
to  be  presented,  it  was  quite  the  same  to  him.  If  he 
was  to  make  her  at  all,  he  must  make  her  as  he  did. 
To  produce  her  thus  was  just  as  easy  for  him  as  for 
an  inferior  workman  to  turn  out  his  clumsy  creature, 
who  might  indeed  be  a  postmaster's  boy  in  petticoats. 
But  so  far  as  performance  was  concerned,  or  stage 
illusion,  or  whatever  we  may  call  that  impression 
which  we  receive  from  the  mimic  life  of  the  theatre, 
this  performance  of  women's  parts  by  young  men  was 
of  the  greatest  importance  when  we  come  to  consider 
the  representation  of  female  personages  who  assume 
the  dress  and  the  character  of  men. 

For  in  the  first  place,  as  it  will  be  seen,  the  male 
guise  was  then  not  disguise.  What  the  spectator  saw 
before  his  eyes  was  actually  a  young  man,  who  might 
or  might  not,  upon  occasion,  assume  certain  feminine 
airs  and  graces  with  more  or  less  success.  And  this 
physical  fact  was  of  the  more  importance,  because  in 
these  plays,  generally,  the  woman  is  disguised  during 
the  greater  part  of  the  performance,  and  takes  on  her 
woman's  weeds  again,  if  at  all,  only  in  the  last  scene. 
Nor  does  the  reverse  of  the  action  present  any  diffi- 
culty at  all  equal  to  that  which  has  been  thus  over- 
come. A  handsome,  smooth-faced  young  man,  skilled 
in  the  actor's  art,  and  disguised  by  wig  and  paint, 

16 


242  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

could  very  easily  present  a  face  to  his  audience  which 
they  would  not  think  for  a  moment  of  doubting  was 
that  of  a  woman  ;  and  when  he  was  playing  the  wo- 
man scenes  of  his  woman's  part,  all  that  was  distinc- 
tively masculine  in  his  person  would  be  entirely  con- 
cealed by  his  woman's  dress.  In  his  woman's  scenes, 
his  disguise  would  be  so  easy  that  to  a  skilled  and 
practised  actor  they  would  present  no  difficulty  that 
would  give  him  a  moment's  trouble.  This  was  even 
more  the  case  in  Shakespeare's  day  than  it  is  now. 
For  then  the  dress  of  a  lady,  with  its  high  ruff,  its 
stiff  stomacher,  and  its  huge  farthingale,  destroyed  in 
every  case  all  semblance  to  the  lines  of  woman's  figure 
as  nature  has  bounteously  vouchsafed  it  to  us.  No 
one  can  study  the  portraits  of  gentlewomen  of  the 
time  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I.  without  seeing  that  the 
human  creatures  within  that  portentous  raiment  might 
just  as  well,  for  all  their  semblance  to  woman,  be  mas- 
culine as  feminine.  And  if  there  had  not  been  almost 
equal  absurdity  and  extravagance  in  some  parts  of 
male  costume  of  that  day,  the  difficulty  in  this  matter 
of  disguise  would  have  been  rather  in  the  acceptance 
of  the  pretending  man  as  a  woman  in  masquerade. 
For,  referring  to  the  impossibility  above  set  forth  that 
Rosalind  could  have  been  mistaken  for  a  young  man 
by  her  lover,  we  see  that,  even  if  her  face  were  masked 
or  hidden,  and  her  dress  revealed  her  woman's  form 
as  it  does  upon  our  stage,  no  man  who  had  sufficient 
appreciation  of  a  woman's  beauty  to  deserve  to  possess 
it  could  be  deceived  in  the  sex  of  Ganymede  for  one 
.moment. 

That  this  is  true  will  hardly  be  disputed  by  any 
woman ;  certainly  by  no  observant  man.  And  yet  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  Rosalinds  —  all  of  them  —  laid 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  243 

themselves  out  to  defy  both  Shakespeare  and  common 
sense  in  this  matter  to  the  utmost  of  attainable  pos- 
sibility. When  they  come  before  us  as .  Ganymede 
they  dress  themselves  not  only  as  no  man  or  boy  in 
England,  but  as  no  human  creature  within  the  narrow 
seas,  was  dressed  in  Shakespeare's  time.  Instead  of 
a  doublet,  they  don  a  kind  of  short  tunic,  girdled  at 
the  waist  and  hanging  to  the  knee.  They  wear  long 
stockings,  generally  of  silk,  imagining  them  to  be 
hose,  and  ignorant,  probably,  that  in  Shakespeare's 
time  there  were  not  a  dozen  pair  of  silk  hose  in  all 
England.  Nevertheless  they  go  about  with  nothing 
but  tight  silk  stockings  upon  their  legs,  amid  the  un- 
derwood and  brambles  of  the  Forest  of  Arden.  With 
some  appreciation  of  this  absurdity,  one  distinguished 
actress  in  this,  part  wears  long  buttoned  gaiters,  which 
are  even  more  anachronistic  than  the  silk  stockings. 
Upon  their  heads  they  all  of  them,  without  exception, 
wear  a  sort  of  hat  which  was  unknown  to  the  mascu- 
line head  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  James,  —  a 
low-crowned,  broad  -  brimmed  something,  more  like 
what  is  known  to  ladies  of  late  years  as  a  "Gains- 
borough "  than  anything  else  that  has  been  named  by 
milliners.  If  a  man  had  appeared  in  the  streets  of 
London  at  that  day  in  such  a  hat,  he  would  have  been 
hooted  at  by  all  the  'prentices  in  Eastcheap.  There 
was  not  in  all  the  Forest  of  Arden  a  wolf  or  a  bear,  of 
the  slightest  pretensions  to  fashion,  that  would  not 
have  howled  at  the  sight  of  such  a  head-gear.  Briefly, 
the  Rosalinds  of  the  stage  are  pretty,  impossible  mon- 
sters, unlike  anything  real  that  ever  was  seen,  unlike 
anything  that  could  have  been  accepted  by  their 
lovers  for  what  they  pretend  to  be,  and  particularly 
unlike  that  which  Shakespeare  intended  that  they 
should  be. 


244  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

Let  us  see  what  Shakespeare  did  intend  his  Rosa- 
lind  to  be  when  she  was  in  the  Forest  of  Arden.  And 
first,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  provided  carefully 
for  one  important  part  of  the  illusion  in  making  his 
heroine  "  more  than  common  tall."  He  evidently  con- 
ceived Rosalind  as  a  large,  fine  girl,  with  a  lithe,  al- 
though vigorous  and  well-rounded  figure.  But  when 
he  sends  her  off  with  Celia,  to  walk  through  lonely 
country  roads  and  outlaw-inhabited  forest  glades,  he 
takes  special  care  to  leave  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the 
extent  as  well  as  the  nature  of  her  concealment,  not 
only  of  her  sex  but  of  her  personal  comeliness.  She 
reminds  Celia  that  "  beauty  provoketh  thieves  sooner 
than  gold  ;  "  and  then  they  go  into  the  particulars  of 
their  disguise  in  speeches,  one  part  of  which  is  al- 
ways cut  out,  amid  the  many  curtailments  to  which 
this  play  is  subjected  for  the  stage.  Celia  says  not 
only,  "  I  '11  put  myself  in  poor  and  mean  attire,"  but 
also,  "and  with  a  kind  of  umber  smirch  my  face." 
"The  like  do  you,"  she  adds  to  Rosalind;  "so  shall 
we  pass  along  and  never  stir  assailants."  Plainly, 
when  the  young  princesses  set  forth  on  their  wild  ad- 
venture, they  did  all  that  they  could  to  conceal  the 
feminine  beauty  of  their  faces.  Celia  puts  herself  in 
the  dress  of  a  woman  of  the  lower  classes.  Rosalind 
assumes  not  merely  the  costume  of  a  young  man,  but 
that  of  a  martial  youth,  almost  of  a  swashbuckler. 
She  says  that  she  will  have  "  a  swashing  and  a  martial 
outside,"  as  well  as  carry  a  boar-spear  in  her  hand, 
and  have  a  curtle-axe  upon  her  thigh.  And,  by  the 
way,  it  is  amusing  to  see  the  literalness  with  which 
the  stage  Rosalinds  take  up  the  text,  and  rig  them- 
selves out  in  conformity  with  their  construction,  or 
it  may  be  the  conventional  stage  construction,  of  it. 


STAGE  ROSALINDS.  245 

They  carry,  among  other  dangling  fallals,  a  little  axe 
in  their  belts,  or  strapped  across  their  shoulders.  But 
Rosalind's  curtle-axe  was  merely  a  court-lasse,  or  cut- 
lass, or,  in  plain  English,  a  short  sword,  which  she 
should  wear  as  any  soldierly  young  fellow  of  the  day 
would  wear  his  sword. 

Thus,  browned,  and  with  her  hair  tied  up  in  love- 
knots,  after  the  fashion  of  the  young  military  dandies 
of  that  time,  with  her  boar-spear  and  her  cutlass, 
she  would  yet  have  revealed  her  sex  to  any  discrimi- 
nating masculine  eye,  had  it  not  been  for  certain  pe- 
culiarities of  costume  in  Shakespeare's  day.  These 
were  the  doublet  and  the  trunk-hose.  Rosalind,  in- 
stead of  wearing  a  tunic  or  short  gown,  cut  up  to  the 
knees,  like  the  little  old  woman  who  "  went  to  market 
her  eggs  for  to  sell "  when  she  fell  asleep  by  the  king's 
highway,  should  wear  the  very  garments  that  she  talks 
so  much  about,  and  in  which  I  never  saw  a  Rosalind 
appear  upon  the  stage.  A  doublet  was  a  short  jacket, 
with  close  sleeves,  fitting  tight  to  the  body,  and  coming 
down  only  to  the  hip,  or  a  very  little  below  it.  Of 
course  its  form  varied  somewhat  with  temporary 
fashion,  and  sometimes,  indeed,  it  stopped  at  the 
waist.  To  this  garment  the  hose  (which  were  not 
stockings,  but  the  whole  covering  for  the  leg  from  shoe 
to  doublet)  were  attached  by  silken  tags  called  points. 
But  during  the  greater  part  of  Shakespeare's  life  what 
were  called  trunk-hose  were  worn ;  and  these,  being 
stuffed  out  about  the  hips  and  the  upper  part  of  the 
thigh  with  bombast,  or  what  was  called  cotton-wool, 
entirely  reversed  the  natural  outline  of  man's  figure 
between  the  waist  and  the  middle  of  the  thigh,  and 
made  it  impossible  to  tell,  so  far  as  shape  was  con- 
cerned, whether  the  wearer  was  of  the  male  or  female 


246  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

sex.  Rosalind,  by  the  doublet  and  hose  that  Shake- 
speare had  in  mind,  and  makes  her  mention  as  an  out- 
side so  very  foreign  to  the  woman  nature  that  is  within, 
would  have  concealed  the  womanliness  of  her  figure 

o 

even  more  than  by  her  umber  she  would  have  dark- 
ened, if  not  eclipsed,  the  beauty  of  her  face.  This 
concealment  of  forms,  which  would  at  once  have  be- 
trayed her  both  to  father  and  lover,  was  perfected  by 
a  necessary  part  of  her  costume  as  a  young  man  living 
a  forest  life  :  these  were  boots.  An  essential  part  of 
Rosalind's  forest  dress  as  Ganymede  is  loose  boots 
of  soft  tawny  leather,  coming  up  not  only  over  leg, 
but  partly  over  thigh,  and  almost  meeting  the  puffed 
and  bombasted  trunk-hose.  To  complete  this  costume 
in  character,  she  should  wear  a  coarse  russet  cloak,  and 
a  black  felt  hat  with  narrow  brim  and  high  and  slightly 
conical  crown,  on  the  band  of  which  she  might  put  a 
short  feather,  and  around  it  might  twist  a  light  gold 
chain  or  ribbon  and  medal.  Thus  disguised,  Rosalind 
might  indeed  have  defied  her  lover's  eye  or  her  father's. 
Thus  arrayed,  the  stage  Rosalind  might  win  us  to  be- 
lieve that  she  was  really  deluding  Orlando  with  the 
fancy  that  the  soul  of  his  mistress  had  migrated  into 
the  body  of  a  page.  This  Rosalind  might  even  meet 
the  penetrating  eye  of  that  old  sinner  Jaques,  experi- 
enced as  he  was  in  all  the  arts  and  deceits  of  men 
and  women,  in  all  climes  and  in  all  countries.  With 
this  Rosalind  Phebe  indeed  might  fall  in  love ;  and  a 
Phebe  must  love  a  man. 

Nor  are  the  perfection  of  Rosalind's  disguise  and 
the  concealment  of  her  sex  from  the  eyes  of  her  com- 
panions important  only  in  regard  to  her  supposed  rela- 
tions with  them.  It  is  essential  to  the  development  of 
her  character,  and  even  to  the  real  significance  of  what 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  247 

she  says  and  does.  The  character  of  Rosalind  plainly 
took  shape  in  Shakespeare's  mind  from  the  situations 
in  which  he  found  her.  The  problem  which  he,  in  the 
making  of  an  entertaining  play,  unconsciously  solved 
was  this  :  Given  a  woman  in  such  situations,  what 
manner  of  woman  must  she  be  to  win  the  man  she 
loves,  to  charm  her  friends,  to  defy  respectfully  her 
usurping  uncle,  and  to  bewilder,  bewitch,  and  delight 
her  lover,  meeting  him  in  the  disguise  of  a  man? 
And  what  sort  of  woman  must  she  be  to  do  all  this 
with  the  respect,  the  admiration,  and  the  sympathy 
of  every  man,  and  moreover  of  every  woman,  in  the 
world  that  looks  on  from  the  other  side  of  the  foot- 
lights, which  are  the  flaming  barrier  about  that  en- 
chanted ground,  the  Forest  of  Arden  ? 

The  woman  that  he  made  to  do  all  this  had,  first  of 
all,  her  large  and  bounteous  personal  beauty.  But 
this,  although  a  great  step  toward  winning  such  wide 
admiration  and  sympathy,  is  but  one  step.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  it  is  Rosalind's  character,  revealed 
under  the  extraordinary  circumstances  in  which  she  is 
placed,  that  makes  her  the  most  charming,  the  most 
captivating,  of  all  Shakespeare's  women ;  one  only, 
the  peerless  Imogen,  excepted.  Now  Rosalind's  char- 
acter is  composed  mainly  of  three  elements,  too  rarely 
found  in  harmonious  combination:  a  proneness  to 
love,  which  must  plainly  be  called  amorousness;  a 
quickness  of  wit  and  a  sense  of  humor  which  are  the 
most  uncommon  intellectual  traits  of  her  sex;  and 
combined  with  these,  tempering  them,  elevating  them, 
glorifying  them,  a  certain  quality  which  can  only  be 
called  an  intense  womanliness,  a  muliebrity,  which  ra- 
diates from  her  and  fills  the  air  around  her  with  the 
influence  —  like  a  subtle  and  delicate  but  penetrating 


248  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

perfume  —  of  her  sex.  Her  distinctive  quality,  that 
which  marks  her  off  from  all  the  rest  of  Shakespeare's 
women,  is  her  sense  of  wit  and  humor,  in  combination 
with  her  womanliness.  Others  of  his  women,  notably 
Viola  and  Imogen,  are  as  loving,  as  tender,  and  as 
womanly.  No  other  is  witty  and  humorous  and  wo- 
manly too;  for  example,  notably,  Beatrice,  who  is 
very  witty,  but  not  very  womanly,  nor  indeed  very 
loving. 

Now  the  position  in  which  Kosalind  figures  in  the 
four  acts  which  pass  in  the  Forest  of  Arden  brings 
out,  as  it  would  seem  no  other  could  bring  out,  her 
wittiness  and  her  humorousness  in  direct  relation  to 
and  combination  with  her  sensitive,  tender,  and  pas- 
sionful  nature.  Rosalind,  for  all  her  soft,  sweet  ap- 
prehensiveness  and  doubt  about  Orlando's  value  of 
that  which  she  has  given  to  him  before  he  had  shown 
that  he  desired  it,  enjoys  the  situation  in  which  she  is 
placed.  She  sees  the  fun  of  it,  as  Celia,  for  example, 
hardly  sees  it ;  and  she  relishes  it  with  the  keenest  ap. 
petite.  If  that  situation  is  not  emphasized  for  the 
spectators  of  her  little  mysterious  mask  of  love  by 
what  is,  for  them,  the  absolute  and  perfectly  probable 
and  natural  deception  of  Orlando,  Rosalind  lacks  the 
very  reason  of  her  being.  To  enjoy  what  she  does 
and  what  she  is,  to  give  her  our  fullest  sympathy^  we 
must  not  be  called  upon  to  make  believe  very  hard 
that  Orlando  does  not  see  she  is  the  woman  that  he 
loves ;  while  at  the  same  time  we  must  see  that  he 
feels  that  around  this  saucy  lad  there  is  floating  a 
mysterious  atmosphere  of  tenderness,  of  enchanting 
fancy,  and  of  a  most  delicate  sensitiveness.  More- 
over, we  must  see  that  Rosalind  herself  is  at  rest 
about  her  incognito,  and  that  she  can  say  her  tender, 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  249 

witty,  boy-masked  sayings  undisturbed  by  the  least 
consciousness  that  Orlando's  eyes  can  see  through  the 
doublet  and  hose,  which  at  once  become  her  first  con- 
cern, her  instant  thought,  when  she  is  told  plainly  that 
he  is  in  the  Forest  of  Arden. 

The  perfection  of  her  disguise  is  thus  essential  to 
the  higher  purpose  of  the  comedy.  Rosalind  was 
fair ;  but  after  having  seen  her  in  her  brilliant  beauty 
at  the  court  of  her  usurping  uncle,  we  must  be  con- 
tent, as  she  was,  to  see  it  browned  to  the  hue  of  forest 
exposure,  and  deprived  of  all  the  pretty  coquetries  of 
personal  adornment  which  sit  so  well  upon  her  sex, 
and  to  find  in  her,  our  very  selves,  the  outward  seem- 
ing of  a  somewhat  overbold  and  soldierly  young  fel- 
low, who  is  living,  half  shepherd,  half  hunter,  in  wel- 
comed companionship  with  a  band  of  gentlemanly 
outlaws.  Unless  all  this  is  set  very  clearly  and  unmis- 
takably before  us  by  the  physical  and  merely  exter- 
nal appearance  of  our  heroine,  there  is  an  incon- 
gruity fatal  to  the  idea  of  the  comedy,  and  directly  at 
variance  with  the  clearly  defined  intentions  of  its 
writer. 

That  incongruity  always  exists  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree  in  the  performance  of  all  the  Rosalinds  of  the 
stage.  I  can  make  no  exception.  In  case  of  the 
best  Rosalinds  I  have  ever  seen,  the  supposition  that 
Orlando  was  deceived,  or  that  any  other  man  could  be 
deceived,  in  the  sex  of  Ganymede  was  absurd,  pre- 
posterous. They  all  dress  the  page  in  such  a  way, 
they  all  play  the  page  in  such  a  way,  that  his  woman- 
hood is  salient.  It  looks  from  his  eye,  it  is  spoken 
from  his  lips,  just  as  plainly  as  it  is  revealed  by  his 
walk  and  by  the  shape  and  action  of  the  things  he 
walks  with.  That  they  should  dress  the  part  with 


250  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

female  coquetry  is,  if  not  laudable,  at  least  admissible, 
excusable.  The  highest  sense  of  art  is  perhaps  not 
powerful  enough  to  lead  a  woman  to  lay  aside,  before 
assembled  hundreds,  all  the  graces  peculiar  to  her  sex ; 
but  surely  no  artist,  who  at  this  stage  of  the  world's 
appreciation  of  Shakespeare  ventures  to  undertake  the 
representation  of  this  character,  ought  to  fail  in  an 
apprehension  of  its  clearly  and  simply  defined  exter- 
nal traits,  or  in  the  action  by  which  those  traits  are 
revealed. 

It  is  the  function  of  comedy  to  present  an  ideal  of 
human  life  in  a  lightly  satirical  and  amusing  form. 
A  comedy  without  wit,  without  humor,  without  the 
occasion  of  laughter,  —  not  necessarily  boisterous,  nor 
even  hearty, — fails  as  a  comedy,  although  it  may  not 
be  without  interest  as  a  drama.  "  As  You  Like  It " 
is  supremely  successful  in  this  respect.  It  does  not 
provoke  loud  laughter ;  I  believe  that  I  never  heard 
a  "  house  laugh "  at  any  performance  of  it  at  which 
I  was  present ;  but  during  its  last  four  acts  we  listen 
to  it  with  gently  smiling  hearts.  It  is  filled  with  the 
atmosphere  of  dainty  fun.  Rosalind  herself  enjoys 
the  fun  of  her  strange  position  ;  she  delights  in  her 
own  humorous  sallies  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  much  as 
Falstaff  revels  in  his.  She  is  divided  between  the 
pleasure  which  she  derives  from  the  mystification  of 
Orlando  and  the  sweet  trouble  of  her  desire  to  make 
sure  of  his  love. 

Now  this  peculiar  trait  of  her  character  cannot  be 
fully  developed  unless  she  carries  out  to  the  utmost 
extreme  her  assumption  of  manhood,  while  she  is  in 
Orlando's  company.  To  him  she  must  indeed  seem 
as  if  she  had  "  a  doublet  and  hose  in  her  disposition." 
She  must  not  lift  a  corner  even  of  her  mental  gar- 


STAGE  ROSALINDS.  251 

ments,  to  show  him  the  woman's  heart  that  is  trem- 
bling underneath.  She  wheedles  him  into  making  love 
to  her  (by  a  contrivance  somewhat  transparent  to  us, 
it  is  true,  but  not  so  easily  seen  through  by  him,  and 
which,  at  any  rate,  must  be  accepted  as  a  necessary 
condition  of  the  action  of  the  play),  but  the  slightest 
attempt  at  open  love-making  to  him  on  her  part  is 
ruinous  ;  it  destroys  at  once  the  humor  and  even  the 
charm  of  the  situation.  We  see  at  once  that  it 
would  have  startled  Orlando,  and  opened  his  eyes 
very  wide  indeed.  And  yet  she  must  show  us,  who 
are  in  her  secret,  all  the  time  "how  many  fathom 
deep  she  is  in  love."  That  outbreak  of  tender  anxiety 
when  she  suddenly  asks  him,  "  But  are  you  so  much 
in  love  as  your  rhymes  speak?"  reveals  everything 
to  us,  who  know  everything  already ;  but  to  Orlando 
it  is  a  very  simple  and  natural  question.  He  need 
not  understand  the  sad,  sweet  earnestness  of  the  in- 
quiry. True,  indeed,  she  does  with  woman's  art  con- 
trive in  some  mysterious  way  that  Orlando  shall  kiss 
the  youth  whom  he  in  sport  doth  call  his  Rosalind, 
which,  because  of  the  kissing  customs  of  those  days, 
she  might  bring  about  more  easily  and  safely  than  she 
could  now.  But  Shakespeare  is  wisely  content  to  let 
us  know  by  her  own  sweet  well-kissed  lips,  that  this 
act  of  her  vicarious  love-making  has  been  duly  and 
repeatedly  performed.  It  takes  place  in  secret,  in 
some  of  those  interviews  which  he  did  not  venture  to 
set  before  our  eyes,  so  instinctively  cautious  was 
he  not  to  break  down  the  illusion  which  is  the  very 
heart  and  centre  of  this  delightful  work  of  dramatic 
art.  Incongruity  is  an  essential  element  of  the  ridicu- 
lous ;  and  the  humor  of  the  action  of  the  play  (apart 
from  its  words)  consists  in  the  constantly  presented 


252  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

inconsistency  between  Rosalind's  external  appearance 
and  her  inward  feeling.  She  must  seem  to  Orlando, 
and  she  must  seem  to  us  (although  we  know  to  the 
contrary)  to  be  a  young  man,  or  we  lose  the  humor  of 
half  that  she  says  and  does,  which  she  herself  enjoys 
with  a  zest  quite  as  great  as  ours.  This  trait  of  her 
character,  mentioned  before,  cannot  be  too  strongly 
insisted  upon.  It  is  shown  in  her  answer  to  her 
father  (which  she  tells  to  Celia),  who  asked  her  of 
what  parentage  she  was.  "  I  told  him,"  she  replies, 
"of  as  good  as  he."  Now  Rosalind  took  great  de- 
light in  thus  "chaffing"  her  own  father.  The  ab- 
surdity of  the  situation,  the  preposterousness  of  the 
question  from  him  to  her,  and  the  humor  of  her 
answer  made  her  eyes  dance  with  pleasure.  Viola  and 
Imogen  wore  their  doublets  and  hose  with  a  differ- 
ence. 

For  these  reasons  the  complete  disguise  of  Rosa- 
lind, her  absolute  sinking  of  her  feminine  personality, 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  effective  repre- 
sentation of  this  play.  Must  I  say,  however,  that 
this  matter  of  external  seeming,  although  of  unusual 
moment  and  significance,  is  but  the  mere  material  con- 
dition and  starting-point  of  the  action,  which  reveals 
to  us  the  soul  and  mind  of  this  captivating  woman,  in 
whom  tenderness  and  archness,  passion  and  purity,  are 
ever  striving  with  each  other,  and  whose  wit  and  way- 
wardness are  ever  controlled  in  the  end  by  innate 
modesty?  And  by  modesty  I  do  not  mean  either 
chastity  or  shame ;  which  I  say,  because  the  three 
things  are  by  so  many  people  strangely  and  injuriously 
confounded.  Rosalind,  we  may  be  sure,  was  chaste  ; 
Orlando  had  no  cause  of  trouble  on  that  score.  But 
as  an  ideal  woman,  she  was  as  far  above  the  belittling 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  253 

of  common  shame  as  a  Greek  goddess.  But,  besides 
her  chastity,  she  was  modest.  Modesty  is  a  grace- 
ful distrust  of  one's  own  value  and  importance,  and 
h  quite  as  frequently  found  in  men  as  in  women. 
AVomen  thoroughly  unchaste  are  not  infrequently  en- 
chantingly  modest ;  women  as  chaste  as  she-dragons 
(if  she-dragons  are  particularly  distinguished  for  this 
virtue)  are  often  ungraciously  immodest.  And  so  it  is 
with  the  inferior  and  conventionally  limited  sensation 
—  I  cannot  call  it  sentiment  —  of  shame.  Women 
who  are  both  unchaste  and  immodest  have  in  many 
cases  a  shrinking  bodily  shame  (determined  mostly, 
if  not  absolutely,  by  the  custom  of  their  day),  which 
is  thoughtlessly  lacking  in  some  women  of  true  purity 
and  of  the  sweetest  and  most  winning  modesty  of 
soul. 

To  return  to  Rosalind.  It  will  be  found  that,  not- 
withstanding her  readiness  to  put  a  man's  clothes  upon 
her  body  and  a  man's  boldness  over  her  heart,  not- 
withstanding her  very  plain  speech  upon  subjects 
which  nowadays  many  a  harlot  would  wince  at,  the 
real  Rosalind,  underneath  that  saucy,  swaggering, 
booted-and-sworded  outside,  was  sweetly  modest ;  and 
that,  notwithstanding  her  birth  and  her  beauty,  and 
the  mental  superiority  of  which  she  must  have  been 
conscious,  she  was  doubting  all  the  while  whether  she 
was  worthy  of  the  love  of  such  a  man  as  Orlando,  and 
thinking  with  constant  alarm  of  that  more  than  half 
confession  that  she  had  made,  unwooed,  to  him  upon 
the  wrestling-ground.  The  absolute  incongruity  be- 
tween the  real  Rosalind  and  the  seeming  Ganymede  is 
the  very  essence  of  the  comedy  of  her  situation.  One 
example  of  this,  which  I  have  never  seen  properly  em- 
phasized upon  the  stage  : v  At  the  end  of  the  first  in- 


254  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

terview  with  Orlando  in  the  Forest,  after  she  has 
wheedled  him  into  wooing  her  as  Kosalind,  she  asks 
him  to  go  with  her  to  her  cot. 

Itos.  Go  with  me  to  it,  and  I  '11  show  it  to  you :  and  by  the  way  you 
shall  tell  me  where  in  the  forest  you  live.     Will  you  goV 
Orl.  With  all  my  heart,  good  youth. 

Ros.  Nay,  you  must  call  me  Rosalind.     Come,  sister,  will  you  go? 

Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

Now  here  most  Kosalind s  go  shyly  off  with  Celia, 
and  leave  Orlando  to  come  dangling  after  them  ;  but 
when  I  read  this  passage  I  see  Ganymede  jauntily  slip 
his  arm  into  Orlando's,  and  lead  him  off,  laughingly 
lecturing  him  about  the  name ;  then  turn  his  head 
over  his  shoulder,  and  say,  "  Come,  sister  !  "  —  leav- 
ing Celia  astounded  at  the  boundless  "  cheek  "  of  her 
enamored  cousin.1 

Kosalind,  poor  girl,  with  all  her  strength  and  elas- 
ticity, is  not  always  able  to  stand  up  firmly  against 
the  flood  of  emotion  which  pours  over  her  heart.  For 
example,  after  the  mock  marriage,  her  doubts  again  be- 
gin to  overwhelm  her,  and  she  asks  Orlando  how  long 
he  would  have  her ;  a  question  which  her  situation 
makes  touchingly  pathetic.  (This  cry  of  woman  for 
love  !  It  would  be  ridiculous,  if  it  were  not  so  sadly, 
piteously  earnest,  amid  all  its  pretty  sweetness.)  And 
then  the  doubting,  half-made  bride,  looking  forward, 
—  in  love  man  thinks  only  of  the  present,  woman  is 
always  looking  forward  ;  for  love  makes  her  future,  — 
utters  that  sad  little  bit  of  commonplace  generality 
about  man's  wearying  of  the  woman  he  has  won  and 

1  I  have  used  the  words  "  cheek  "  and  "chaff,"  in  connection  with  Ros- 
alind, because  they  convey  to  us  of  this  day  the  nature  of  her  goings-on 
as  no  other  words  would:  and  Shakespeare  himself,  who  always  treats 
slang  respectfully,  although  he  contemns  and  despises  cant,  would  be  the 
first  to  pardon  me. 


STAGE  ROSALINDS.  255 

has  possessed,  thinking,  plainly,  all  the  while  of  her- 
self and  what  may  come  to  her ;  when  suddenly,  rec- 
ollecting her  part,  and  that  she  is  in  danger  of  show- 
ing what  she  really  is,  she  breaks  sharply  off,  and  with 
rapid  raillery  and  shrewish  accent  she  pours  out  upon 
him  that  mock  threat,  beginning,  "  I  will  be  more 
jealous  of  thee  than  a  Barbary  cock-pigeon  over  his 
hen."  And  again  in  this  scene,  when  Orlando  parts 
from  her,  and  promises  to  return  in  two  hours,  her 
badinage  wavers  very  doubtfully  between  jest  and  ear- 
nest, between  humor  and  sentiment ;  but  she  catches 
herself  before  she  falls,  and  beginning,  "  By  my  troth, 
and  in  good  earnest,  and  so  God  mend  me,"  and  so 
forth,  again  takes  refuge  in  exaggerated  menaces  of 
her  coming  displeasure. 

All  this  is  charming,  even  when  but  tolerably  well 
set  forth,  and  by  such  Rosalinds  as  we  customarily  see 
upon  the  stage ;  but  how  much  it  usually  falls  short  of 
the  effect  which  Shakespeare  imagined  can  be  known 
only  to  those  who  can  see  that  in  the  mind's  eye,  or 
who  shall  see  it,  some  time,  in  reality. 

On  the  other  hand,  our  stage  Rosalinds  are  not  wo- 
manly enough  when  they  are  out  of  sight  of  Orlando 
and  of  other  men ;  when,  indeed,  from  reaction  and 
relaxed  nerves,  they  should  be  womanly  even  unto 
womanishness.  When  Rosalind  is  with  Celia  she  is 
the  more  woman-like  of  the  two  ;  the  more  capricious, 
sensitive,  tender,  passionf ul,  apprehensive.  It  is  Celia, 
then,  who,  after  her  mild  fashion,  assumes  the  wit  and 
the  female  cynic.  But  our  stage  Rosalinds  give  us  a 
lukewarm  rendering  of  both  phases  of  the  behavior 
of  the  real  Rosalind.  They  offer  us  one  epicene  mon- 
ster, instead  of  two  natural  creatures.  They  are  too 
woman-like  when  they  are  with  Orlando,  and  too  man- 


256  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

like  when  they  are  with  Celia.  And  when  is  it  that 
we  have  seen  a  stage  Rosalind  that  showed  us  what 
the  Rosalind  of  our  imagination  felt  at  the  sight  of 
the  bloody  handkerchief  ?  I  never  saw  but  one :  Mrs. 
Charles  Kean.  The  last  that  I  saw  behaved  much  as 
if  Oliver  had  shown  her  a  beetle,  which  she  feared 
might  fly  upon  her ;  and  in  the  end  she  turned  and 
clung  to  Celia's  shoulder.  But  as  Oliver  tells  his 
story  the  blood  of  the  real  Rosalind  runs  curdling  from 
her  brain  to  her  heart,  and  she  swoons  away,  —  falls 
like  one  dead,  to  be  caught  by  the  wondering  Oliver. 
Few  words  are  spoken,  because  few  are  needed ;  but 
this  swoon  is  no  brief  incident ;  and  Rosalind  recovers 
only  to  be  led  off  by  the  aid  of  Oliver  and  Celia.  And 
here  the  girl  again  makes  an  attempt  to  assert  her 
manhood.  She  insists  that  she  counterfeited,  and  re- 
peats her  assertion.  Then  here  again  the  stage  Rosa- 
linds all  fail  to  present  her  as  she  is.  They  say  "  coun- 
terfeit "  with  at  least  some  trace  of  a  sly  smile,  and  as 
if  they  did  not  quite  expect  or  wholly  desire  Oliver  to 
believe  them.  But  Rosalind  was  in  sad  and  grievous 
earnest.  Never  word  that  she  uttered  was  more  sober 
and  serious  than  her  "  counterfeit  I  assure  you."  And 
the  fun  of  the  situation,  which  is  never  absent  in  "  As 
You  Like  It,"  consists  in  the  complex  of  incongruity, 
—  the  absurdity  of  a  young  swashbuckler's  fainting  at 
the  sight  of  a  bloody  handkerchief,  the  absurdity  of 
Rosalind's  protest  that  her  swoon  and  deadly  horror 
were  counterfeit,  combining  with  our  knowledge  of 
the  truth  of  the  whole  matter. 

All  this  may  be  very  true,  our  gently  smiling  man- 
ager replies  ;  but  do  you  suppose  that  you  are  going 
to  get  any  actress  to  brown  her  face  and  rig  herself  up 
so  that  she  will  actually  look  like  a  young  huntsman, 


STAGE   ROSALINDS.  257 

and  play  her  part  so  that  a  man  might  unsuspectingly 
take  her  for  another  man  ?  O  most  verdant  critic,  do 
you  not  know  why  it  is  that  actresses  come  before  the 
public  ?  It  is  for  two  reasons,  of  which  it  would  be 
hard  to  say  which  is  the  more  potent :  to  have  the  pub- 
lic delight  in  them,  and  to  get  money.  It  is  in  them- 
selves personally  that  they  wish  to  interest  their  audi- 
ences, not  in  their  author  or  his  creations ;  those  furnish 
but  the  means  and  the  occasion  of  accomplishing  the 
former.  Hence  it  is  that  in  all  modern  plays,  in  all 
(practically)  that  have  been  written  since  actresses 
came  upon  the  stage,  the  women's  parts  must  be  at- 
tractive. We  cannot  ask  an  actress  under  fifty  years 
of  age  to  (in  stage  phrase)  "  play  against  the  house." 
Above  all,  we  cannot  ask  an  actress  of  less  than  those 
years  to  put  herself,  as  a  woman,  before  the  house  in 
anything  but  an  attractive  form.  She  must  have  an 
opportunity  to  exhibit  herself  and  her  "  toilettes ; " 
especially  both,  but  particularly  the  latter.  And,  O 
most  priggish  and  carping  critic,  with  your  musty  no- 
tions about  what  Shakespeare  meant,  and  such  fusty 
folly,  the  public  like  it  as  it  is.  They  care  more  to  see 
a  pretty  woman,  with  a  pretty  figure,  prancing  saucily 
about  the  stage  in  silk-tights,  and  behaving  like  neither 
man  nor  woman,  than  they  would  to  see  a  booted, 
doubletted,  felt-hatted  Rosalind,  behaving  now  like  a 
real  man  and  now  like  a  real  woman. 

To  which  the  critic  replies,  O  most  sapient  and 
worldly  wise  manager,  I  know  all  that ;  and,  moreover, 
that  it  is  the  reason  why,  instead  of  a  Rosalind  of 
Shakespeare's  making,  we  have  that  hybrid  thing,  the 
stage  Rosalind. 

17 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  IAGO. 


THE  civil  war  which  ended  by  placing  the  Puritans 
in  power,  and  making  Oliver  Cromwell  King  of  Eng- 
land under  the  name  of  Lord  Protector,  had  for  one 
of  its  consequences  a  solution  of  dramatic  continuity 
which  is  of  great  importance  in  the  history  of  the 
English  theatre.  The  glories  of  the  Elizabethan 
drama,  indeed,  had  faded  away  rapidly  during  tho 
reign  of  Charles  I.,  having  begun  to  wane  in  the  later 
years  of  his  father.  It  was  in  the  traditions  of  the 
stage  that  the  break  was  so  sudden  and  so  complete. 

In  1642  the  Elizabethan  school  of  acting  came  to  an 
end  with  the  compulsory  closing  of  the  theatres  ;  and 
although  only  eighteen  years  elapsed  before  they  were 
reopened,  in  that  time  not  only  had  all  the  old  school 
of  actors  passed  away,  but  with  them  had  disappeared 
the  taste  which  they  had  formed.  At  the  return  of 
Charles  II.  the  theatres  were  reopened ;  but  the  old 
English  drama  was  not  revived.  Shakespeare's  plays, 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's,  Jonson's,  were  not  per- 
formed. A  new  drama  appeared  in  England,  that 
known  as  the  drama  of  the  Restoration,  —  a  base 
thing,  witty  but  flimsy,  and  as  devoid  of  real  humor  as 
of  serious  strength  ;  and  with  it  came  a  new  school  of 
acting.  Consequently,  when,  after  many  years  of 
smut  and  smirk,  Shakespeare's  plays  began  to  be  per- 
formed again,  the  actors  were  thrown  wholly  upon 


ON   THE   ACTING  OF   IAGO.  259 

their  own  resources ;  they  were  without  any  guide  to 
the  conception  of  his  characters.  Their  predecessors 
before  the  Commonwealth  had  the  benefit  of  tradi- 
tions which  came,  during  an  interval  of  little  more 
than  twenty-five  years,  directly  down  from  Shakespeare 
himself,  and  which,  but  for  that  great  political  and 
social  upturning  of  England,  would  have  remained 
unbroken  to  the  present  day.  The  new  school  of 
actors  were  obliged,  in  theatrical  phrase,  to  "  create  " 
the  Shakespearean  characters  anew,  without  the  guid- 
ance of  the  dramatist,  who  in  almost  all  cases,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  has  a  formative  influence  upon  the  first 
presentation  of  his  personages  to  the  public. 

Hence  there  was  a  great  loss  to  the  world ;  for  the 
traditions  of  the  stage  are  among  the  most  enduring 
of  immaterial  things.  How  enduring  they  are,  even 
as  to  minute  points,  is  shown  by  evidence  which  is 
clear  and  unmistakable  in  regard  to  a  trifling  piece  of 
stage  "  business  "  in  "  Hamlet."  In  the  scene  of  that 
tragedy  in  which  the  imagined  appearance  of  the 
Ghost  interrupts  the  interview  between  Hamlet  and 
his  mother,  it  was  the  modern  custom,  until  very  lately, 
for  the  Prince  to  spring  from  his  seat  with  such  vio- 
lence as  to  throw  down  the  chair  on  which  he  was  sit- 
ting. Now  in  1709  Nicolas  Rowe  published  the  first 
edited  collection  of  Shakespeare's  plays  ;  and  each 
play  had  a  frontispiece  illustrating  one  of  its  most 
conspicuous  scenes.  The  frontispiece  to  "Hamlet" 
illustrates  the  scene  in  question,  and  shows  us  Hamlet 
in  an  enormous  flowing  wig,  startled  out  of  his  pro- 
priety, and  his  chair  flung  down  in  the  foreground. 
We  thus  see  that  even  this  little  trick  was  handed 
down  from  actor  to  actor,  and  held  its  place  upon  the 
stage  for  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  In  all 


260  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

plays  that  have  kept  the  stage  for  a  long  time  there 
are  traditional  points  not  only  like  this,  but  of  a  more 
subtle  and  more  important  sort  in  regard  both  to  char- 
acter and  action,  which,  without  affecting  the  indi- 
viduality of  the  principal  actors,  perpetuate  certain 
traits  and  outlines  of  the  visible  play,  and  which  we 
may  be  sure  had  more  or  less  the  approval  of  the 
author,  many  of  them,  doubtless,  being  of  his  sugges- 
tion. It  is  thus  that  Moliere's  and  Corneille's  and 
Racine's  dramas  are  performed  at  the  Theatre  Fran- 
c,ais.  And  but  for  the  interruption  caused  by  the 
civil  war,  and  the  success  of  the  Puritans,  we  may  be 
sure  that  we  should  have  had  Shakespeare's  own  no- 
tions of  his  personages  handed  down  to  us  from  actor 
to  actor.  For  he  was  not  only  the  author  of  his  plays 
(although  some  folk  will  have  it  that  they  were  writ- 
ten for  him  by  Bacon),  but  an  actor  in  them :  he  was  on 
the  stage,  ready  to  give  direction  and  suggestion  to  his 
brother  actors  who  assumed  the  principal  parts.  The 
loss  of  these  traditions  is  irreparable  and  deplorable. 

Among  the  personages  of  his  dramas  who  have  suf- 
fered by  this  loss,  and  who  are  presented  as  he  did 
not  conceive  them,  are  Jaques  in  "As  You  Like  It,"  and 
the  Fool  in  "  King  Lear."  There  has  been  no  greater 
affront  to  common  sense  than  the  usual  presentation  of 
this  Fool  upon  the  stage  as  a  boy,  except  the  putting  a 
pretty  woman  into  the  part,  dressed  in  such  a  way  as  to 
captivate  the  eye  and  divert  the  attention  by  the  beauty 
of  her  figure.  It  is  disturbing  enough  to  see  Ariel,  sex- 
less, but,  like  the  angels,  rather  masculine  than  femi- 
nine, represented  by  a  woman  dressed  below  the  waist 
in  an  inverted  gauze  saucer,  and  above  the  waist  in  a 
perverted  gauze  nothing ;  but  to  see  Lear's  Fool  thus 
travestied  is  more  amazing  than  Bottom's  brutal  trans- 


ON   THE   ACTING   OF   IAGO.  261 

lation  was  to  his  fellow  actors.  This  Fool  is  a  man  of 
middle  age,  one  who  has  watched  the  world  and  grown 
sad  over  it.  His  jesting  has  a  touch  of  heart-break  in 
it  which  is  prevented  from  becoming  pathetic  only  by 
the  cynicism  which  pertains  partly  to  his  personal  char- 
acter and  partly  to  his  office.  He  and  Kent  are  about 
of  an  age  —  Kent,  who  when  asked  his  age,  as  he  comes 
back  disguised  to  his  old  master,  says,  "•  Not  so  young 
as  fco  love  a  woman  for  her  singing,  nor  so  old  as  to  dote 
on  her  for  anything ;  I  have  years  on  my  back  forty- 
eight  "  —  a  speech  which  contains  one  of  the  finest  of 
Shakespeare's  minor  touches  of  worldly-wise  character 
drawing. 

Jaques,  as  we  see  him  on  the  stage,  is  a  sentimental 
young  man,  who  wanders  about  the  Forest  of  Arden, 
mooning  and  maundering  in  a  soft  and  almost  silly  way  ; 
a  sweet-voiced  young  fellow,  with  dark  eyes  and  dark 
curls,  who  is  pitiful  of  wounded  stags,  and  given  to 
moods  of  tender  melancholy ;  a  moralizing  dandy, 
whom  the  real  Jaques  would  have  made  the  butt  of 
his  ridicule.  Shakespeare's  Jaques  is  an  elderly  man 
of  the  world,  a  selfish,  worn  out,  captious,  crusty, 
clever  cynic.  In  person  he  should  be  represented  as 
a  portly  man  of  some  sixty  years  of  age,  with  gray  in 
his  beard,  a  head  partly  bald,  and  a  constant  sneer 
upon  his  lips.  This  view  of  his  character  has  been 
generally  accepted  of  late  years  by  critics  of  Shake- 
speare, although  no  actor  has  had  the  hardihood  to 
displace  the  traditionary  young  sentimentalist  of 
the  stage,  and  give  us  the  elderly  cynic  that  Shake- 
speare conceived  and  wrought  out  with  his  finest  skill. 
The  modern  stage  tradition  as  to  Jaques  had  its  origin 
at  a  time  —  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  Shake- 
speare's death  ~^-  when.  "  _4§  You  Like  It  "  began  to 


262  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

come  upon  the  stage  again,  and  when  the  word  melan- 
choly had  been  narrowed  in  its  significance.  We  may 
be  sure  that  but  for  the  civil  war  and  the  Puritans, 
tradition  would  have  given  us  a  Jaques  of  a  very  dif- 
ferent character. 

A  much  greater  —  we  cannot  say  grander  or  nobler 
—  conception  of  Shakespeare's  has  suffered  in  like 
manner  from  the  interruption  of  the  traditions  of  the 
Elizabethan  stage.  I  mean  lago.  It  cannot  be  that 
the  lago  of  the  modern  stage  is,  either  in  external 
appearance  or  in  his  characteristic  traits,  the  man 
who  deceived  and  betrayed  Desdemona,  Cassio,  and 
Othello.  lago,  as  Shakespeare  presents  him  to  any 
careful  and  thoughtful  student  of  the  tragedy,  is  en- 
tirely unlike  the  coarse  although  crafty  villain  who  has 
held  possession  of  the  stage  from  the  time  of  the  re- 
vival of  the  Shakespearean  drama  until  the  present 
day.  The  latter  is  a  creature  of  conventional  and 
theatrical  traits  of  person  and  of  action,  whom  Shake- 
speare would  not  have  allowed  to  occupy  the  stage  for 
a  single  scene.  Most  of  the  lagos  that  I  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  observing  —  I  cannot  say  of  study- 
ing, for  they  were  of  such  rude  making,  were  such 
mere  animated  human  formulas,  that  they  neither  re- 
quired nor  admitted  study  —  would  not  have  deceived 
a  school-girl.  Desdemona  would  have  been  far  be- 
yond their  shallow  scheming,  and  Othello  would  have 
brushed  them  out  of  the  way  with  a  back  blow  of  his 
mailed  hand.  Even  the  best  of  them,  although  gifted 
and  accomplished  men,  failed  entirely  to  apprehend 
Shakespeare's  ideal  of  this  master  villain  of  the 
world's  literature. 

The  worst  lago  probably  that  ever  appeared  was  he 
who  played  "  ancient "  to  the  greatest  of  Othellos,  Sal- 


ON   THE   ACTING   OF  IAGO.  263 

vini,  on  his  first  visit  to  the  United  States.  Upon  this 
lago  Othello  would  have  set  his  heel  in  their  first  in- 
terview and  crushed  him  out  of  existence  like  a  noisome 
venomous  reptile,  —  an  insect ;  for  he  had  not  the 
dignity  of  a  vertebrate  animal.  And  yet  this  actor 
merely  presented  in  a  very  complete  and  much  elabo- 
rated way  the  common  stage  conception  of  the  evil 
genius  of  the  great  tragedy.  That  conception  is  a 
subtle,  fawning,  crawling  hypocrite,  who,  for  some  not 
very  apparent  reason,  wishes  to  do  as  much  harm  as 
he  can,  and  who  accomplishes  his  ends  by  unscrupu- 
lous lying  of  more  or  less  ingenuity.  The  character 
of  this  personage  rests  upon  the  foundations  of  malice 
and  hypocrisy  ;  and  the  object  of  those  who  represent 
him  is  to  present  an  embodiment  of  malice  and  hy- 
pocrisy, pure  and  simple.  The  result  is  a  very  exag- 
gerated form  of  a  very  commonplace  scoundrel.  Sal- 
vini's  ancient  was  quite  perfect  of  his  kind,  and 
therefore  attained  the  eminence  of  being  the  most  in- 
sufferable and  aggressively  offensive  lago  that  ever 
trod  the  stage.  He  managed- in  dress  and  in  carriage, 
as  well  as  in  face,  so  to  advertise  his  malice,  and  above 
all  his  hypocrisy,  that  he  was  in  very  deed  the  most 
loathsome  creature,  morally  and  physically,  that  I 
ever  looked  upon.  Such  a  caitiff  lago  was  in  soul, 
but  not  in  seeming. 

Before  going  on  to  consider  the  various  passages  of 
the  tragedy  which  indicate  Shakespeare's  conception 
of  this  personage  —  hardly  inferior  to  any  of  his  cre- 
ations in  its  union  of  complexity  and  strength,  and 
perhaps  the  most  widely  known  of  all  of  them  as  a 
type  —  it  may  be  well  to  describe  the  real  lago,  who, 
so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  has  never  been  pre- 
sented on  the  modern  stage. 


264  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

lago  was  a  young  man,  only  twenty-eight  years  old, 
the  youngest  of  all  the  men  who  figure  in  the  tragedy, 
excepting,  possibly,  Roderigo.  He  says  of  himself 
that  he  has  looked  upon  the  world  for  four  times  seven 
years.  Brave,  and  a  good  soldier,  he  was  also  of  that 
order  of  ability  which  lifts  a  man  speedily  above  his 
fellows.  His  manners  and  his  guise  were  of  a  dash- 
ing military  sort  ;  and  his  manner  had  a  corre- 
sponding bluntness,  tempered,  at  times,  by  tact  to  a 
warm-hearted  effusiveness,  —  by  the  very  tact  which 
prompted  the  bluntness.  For  that,  although  not  ex- 
actly assumed,  was  consciously  adopted.  Nevertheless, 
he  had  little  spontaneous  malice  in  his  composition ; 
and  unless  for  some  good  reason  he  would  rather 
serve  than  injure  those  around  him.  He  made  him- 
self liked  by  all,  and  was  regarded  not  only  as  a  man 
of  great  ability  in  his  profession  and  of  sagacity  in 
affairs,  but  as  a  warm-hearted,  "  whole-souled  "  man, 
and  the  very  prince  of  good  fellows.  Being  all  this, 
and  being  genial  and  sympathetic,  he  was  eminently 
popular.  He  was,  moreover,  a  heartless,  selfish,  cold- 
blooded, unprincipled,  and  utterly  unscrupulous  scoun- 
drel. 

It  was  because  he  was  this  manner  of  man  that  he 
was  able  to  work  that  woeful  ruin  in  which  the  love  of 
Othello  and  Desdemona  ends,  —  a  ruin  which  in  its 
extremity,  however,  he  did  not  plan,  and  did  not  at 
first  desire.  In  fact,  he  had  no  inclination  to  do  need- 
less harm  to  any  one  ;  he  would  not  have  gone  out  of 
his  way  to  tread  upon  a  worm  if  it  had  kept  out  of 
Ms  way,  and  been  no  barrier  to  his  success  in  life. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  no  such  lago  has  been 
seen  upon  the  stage  for  the  last  two  hundred  years ; 
there  is  not  a  memory  or  record  of  him.  The  elder 


ON   THE  ACTING   OF  IAGO.  265 

Booth's  lago  was  an  admirable  performance,  almost 
wonderful  in  its  force  and  keeping.  I  saw  it  in  my 
boyhood  just  as  this  great  actor  was  staggering  off  the 
stage  ;  and  nothing  equal  to  it  have  I  ever  seen  except 
Rachel's  performances.  But  it  was  the  simple,  strong 
representation  of  a  hardened,  crafty  villain,  a  monster 
of  hate  and  of  cruelty.  The  climax  of  the  whole  per- 
formance was  in  the  Parthian  look  which  lago,  as  he 
was  borne  off  wounded  and  in  bonds,  gave  Othello,  — 
a  Gorgon  stare,  in  which  hate  seemed  both  petrified 
and  petrifying.  It  was  frightful. 

Edwin  Booth's  conception  of  the  character,  although 
not  so  clear  and  strong,  is  finer,  more  delicate,  and 
more  complex.  His  lago  is  not  externally  a  mere 
hardened  villain,  but  a  super-subtle  Venetian,  who 
works  out  his  fiendish  plans  with  a  dexterous  lightness 
of  touch  and  smooth  sinuosity  of  movement  that  sug- 
gest the  transmigration  of  a  serpent  into  human 
form.  And  in  his  visage,  and  above  all  in  his  eye, 
burn  the  venorn  of  his  soul ;  which  makes  his  face  at 
times  look  snake-like,  as  we  say,  —  erroneously,  how- 
ever ;  for  the  eyes  of  a  snake  do  not  burn  and  flash ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  have  their  hideous  look  because 
of  a  dull  and  stony  malignancy  of  expression.  But 
even  Edwin  Booth's  lago,  although  much  finer  and 
more  nearly  consistent  with  itself  and  with  the  facts  of 
the  tragedy  than  any  other  that  is  known  to  the  annals 
of  the  stage,  is  not  the  lago  that  Shakespeare  drew,  and 
whose  lineaments,  moral  and  physical,  have  just  been 
set  before  the  reader.  The  chief  cause  of  the  general 
failure  to  present  this  character  truly  is  the  disposition 
and  habit  of  the  stage  —  a  disposition  and  habit  not 
unknown  to  real  life  —  to  divide  men  into  classes,  and 
to  regard  them  individually  as  the  embodiment  of 


266  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

some  one  passion,  or  motive,  or  type  of  character, 
lago  is  a  crafty  hypocrite ;  and  therefore  the  stage 
has  sought  to  set  before  us  his  hypocrisy  and  his  craft 
in  such  a  manner  that  they  in  combination  are  lago. 
The  best  lago  of  the  modern  stage  is  hypocrisy  and 
craft  embodied,  as  we  have  just  seen,  and  he  is  noth- 
ing else.  Now  the  truth  is  that  the  embodiment  of 
such  a  simple  combination  of  moral  baseness  and  men- 
tal subtlety  was  not  in  Shakespeare's  mind,  and  is  a 
quite  impossible  agent  and  element  of  the  confusion 
and  disaster  of  the  tragedy. 

The  most  strongly  marked  external  traits  of  Shake 
speare's  lago,  the  lago  who  was  known  in  Venice  and 
rose  rapidly  in  general  favor  there,  were  honesty  and 
a  warm  heart :  honesty  of  the  kind  which  is  notably 
outspoken  and  trustworthy;  warmth  of  heart  which 
seems  to  have  sympathy  for  all  men,  not  only  in  all 
their  hopes  and  sorrows,  but  in  all  their  little  likings 
and  small  personal  vanities.  Is  there  any  wonder 
that  such  a  man  was  popular  and  got  on  in  the  world, 
—  that  he  was  in  favor  with  the  best  and  greatest  ?  For 
he  was  not  a  mere  flatterer,  however  skilful.  The 
most  marked  trait  in  this  bold  soldier's  character  was 
his  good  faith.  As  if  with  a  premonition  of  the  com- 
ing misconception  and  misrepresentation  of  his  crea- 
ture, and  to  put  his  seeming  character  beyond  misap- 
prehension, Shakespeare  applies  the  epithet  "  honest  '* 
to  him  no  less  than  sixteen  times  in  the  course  of  the 
tragedy.  Such  a  description  —  we  may  almost  say  such 
a  labelling  —  of  another  of  his  personages  is  not  to 
be  found  in  all  the  multitude  that  throng  through  his 
thirty-seven  dramas.  And  this  is  the  more  worthy  of 
note  because  in  the  Italian  story  out  of  which  the  play 
was  made  there  is  no  hint  of  this  trait  to  lago's  char- 


ON   THE  ACTING  OF  IAGO.  267 

acter,  nor  indeed  of  any  of  his  complex  moral  and 
mental  constitution.  He  is  absolutely  and  exclusively 
Shakespeare's  conception.  His  trustworthiness,  be- 
cause of  his  truthful  nature  and  his  warm  and  friend- 
ly heart,  is  to  those  around  him  the  attractive  trait  of 
his  character  up  to,  and  even  past,  the  catastrophe 
which  his  cruelly  indifferent  selfishness  brings  about. 
Othello,  after  he  has  killed  Desdemona,  pauses  in  his 
agony  to  call  his  tormentor  and  destroyer  "  my  friend, 
honest,  honest  lago."  All  the  principal  personages 
of  the  tragedy,  Desdemona  and  Cassio  included,  thus 
regard  him ;  although  Cassio,  himself  a  soldier,  is 
most  impressed  by  lago's  personal  bravery  and  mili- 
tary ability.  In  speaking  of  him,  he  not  being  pres- 
ent, the  lieutenant  calls  him  "  the  bold  lago,"  and  in 
his  presence  says  to  Desdemona  that  she  "  may  relish 
him  more  in  the  soldier  than  in  the  scholar."  But 
Othello  was  chiefly  attracted  by  his  honesty  and  kind- 
ly nature.  He  speaks  of  him  ta  the  Senate  as  a  man 
"  of  honesty  and  trust,"  calls  him  fct  most  honest,"  says 
he  is  of  "  exceeding  honesty,"  and  indeed  shows  in  all 
his  conversation  with  him  his  absolute  unquestioning 
reliance  upon  his  good  faith,  —  a  good  faith  which  is 
not  mere  uncontaminated  purity  from  deceit,  but  an 
active,  benevolent  honesty,  which  seeks  the  best  good 
of  others. 

For  loving-kindness  was  hardly  less  than  honesty 
an  attractive  feature  of  lago's  external  character. 
Othello  constantly  speaks  of  the  love  that  he  finds  in 
his  "  ancient."  His  sympathies  are  always  ready,  al- 
ways manifest.  When  Cassio  is  involved  in  the  brawl, 
Othello,  in  the  first  outburst  of  his  wrath,  says :  — 

Honest  lago,  that  laok'st  dead  with  grieving, 
Speak,  who  began  this  V     On  thy  love,  I  charge  thee. 

Act  II.  Sc.  3. 


268  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

The  man  deceived  even  his  wife ;  for  she,  speaking  the 
next  day  to  Desdemona  of  Cassio's  disgrace,  says,  — 

I  warrant  it  grieves  my  husband 
As  if  the  case  were  his. 

Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Now  it  is  plain  that  lago  had  no  particular  reason  or 
occasion  to  deceive  his  wife  on  this  point.  He  merely 
showed  to  her  what  he  showed  to  everybody,  a  readi- 
ness to  sympathize  with  the  joys  and  sorrows  and 
wishes  of  those  around  him.  Emilia,  a  woman  of  the 
world,  a  woman  of  experiences,  who  knew  her  husband 
better  than  many  wives  know  theirs,  is  yet  imposed 
upon  by  this  skin-deep  warmth  and  surface  glow  of 
his  character.  It  is  not  until  the  climax  of  the  trag- 
edy that  even  she  is  undeceived. 

In  the  eyes  of  his  friends  and  acquaintances  lago 
was  not  merely  an  honest  man  and  a  good-natured  one, 
after  the  semblance  of  ordinary  honesty  and  good 
nature.  These  traits  were  salient  in  him  ;  they  dis- 
tinguished him  from  other  men.  And  they  were  his 
noted  peculiarities  of  character  among  his  acquaint- 
ances long  before  he  had  any  temptation  to  reveal 
his  real  and  inner  nature,  which,  until  the  temptation 
came,  was  possibly  but  half  known  to  himself,  although 
indeed  he  had  a  certain  consciousness  of  it  in  his  feel- 
ing of  instinctive  aversion  to  the  sweetness  and  no- 
bility of  soul  showed  in  Cassio's  daily  life.  The  occa- 
sion that  revealed  him  completely  to  himself  was  the 
elevation  of  Cassio  to  the  lieutenancy,  —  this  being  a 
place  second  in  rank  to  that  of  a  general  officer. 

For  this  honest,  warm-hearted,  effusively  sympa- 
thetic man  was  a  soldier  of  such  approved  valor  and 
capacity,  and  so  highly  regarded,  that  when  the  lieu- 
tenant-generalship became  vacant,  notable  men  of 


ON  THE  ACTING   OF  IAGO.  269 

Venice  concerned  themselves  to  have  the  young  officer 
promoted  to  the  place ;  for  which  they  made  personal 
suit  to  Othello,  —  an  incident  which  in  itself  shows 
not  only  lago's  military  distinction,  but  his  success  in 
attaching  others  to  his  interests.  And  Shakespeare, 
as  if  to  put  the  full  complement  of  lago's  personal 
gifts  beyond  a  question  (he  gives  to  lago's  character 
a  particularity  of  description  as  rare  with  him  as  that 
which  he  gives  to  Imogen's  beauty),  makes  Othello 
say  of  him  that  he  "  knows  all  qualities,  with  a  learned 
spirit  of  human  dealings."  Indeed,  there  is  hardly  a 
man  of  Shakespeare's  making,  except  Hamlet,  who  is 
set  before  us  as  possessing  the  manifold  personal  gifts, 
accomplishments,  and  attractions  which  won  for  lago 
the  distinction  and  favor  which  he  enjoyed  in  the 
highest  society  of  Venice. 

As  to  the  make  of  him,  and  what  he  really  was,  lago 
by  a  very  evident  special  design  of  the  dramatist  re- 
veals himself  fully  in  the  first  scene.  After  setting 
forth  the  promotion  of  Cassio  as  the  cause  of  his  ill- 
will  to  Othello,  and  expressing  his  contempt  for  such 
honest  knaves  (that  is,  merely  such  honest  serving- 
men)  as  do  their  duty  for  duty's  sake,  he  says,  — 

Others  there  are 

Who,  trimm'd  in  forms  and  visages  of  duty, 
Keep  yet  their  hearts  attending  on  themselves, 
And,  throwing  but  shows  of  service  on  their  lords, 
Do  well  thrive  by  them,  and  when  they  have  linM  their  coats 
Do  themselves  homage.     These  fellows  have  some  soul; 
And  such  a  one  do  I  profess  myself. 

Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

And  again,  in  his  soliloquy  at  the  end  of  the  first  act, 
he  shows  us  the  same  selfish,  unscrupulous  nature,  but 
no  disposition  to  malice,  or  even  to  needless  mischief, 
—  only  a  cruel  heartlessness.  Even  the  Roderigos  of 
the  world  would  have  remained  unharmed  by  him,  un- 


270  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

less  he  could  have  gained  something  by  their  injury. 
The  very  man  who  "  makes  a  corner  "  in  stocks  or  in 
provisions,  by  which  he  ruins  the  acquaintance  with 
whom  he  dined  yesterday  and  brings  unknown  widows 
and  children  to  want,  is  not  freer  from  personal  malice 
towards  his  victims  than  lago  was  from  ill-will  towards 
his.  He  would  much  rather  have  attained  his  ends  by 
doing  them  a  service.  But  let  a  worm  or  a  friend  bar 
his  way,  and  he  would  rack  and  rend  the  one  just  as 
quickly  and  coolly  as  he  would  crush  the  other. 

Some  other  traits  of  lago's  character,  which  are 
manifested  incidentally,  notably  a  certain  coarseness, 
and  a  lack  of  any  tenderness  or  sentiment  towards 
women,  or  any  faith  even  in  the  best  of  them,  I  pass 
by  with  mere  allusion ;  although  those  which  I  have 
now  particularly  mentioned  are  made  by  Shakespeare, 
with  a  great  master's  subtleness  and  truth,  marked  ele- 
ments in  the  composition  of  such  a  man. 

In  the  creation  of  lago  the  author  of  Othello  had, 
as  I  have  already  remarked,  no  help  or  hint  from  the 
story  out  of  which  he  made  his  tragedy,  nor  from  any 
precedent  play,  so  far  as  we  know,  —  a  rare  isolation 
and  originality  in  Shakespeare's  personages.  The 
lago  of  the  Italian  story  is  a  coarse,  commonplace  vil- 
lain, who  differs  from  Shakespeare's  lago  in  this  very 
point :  that  he  is  a  morose,  malicious  creature.  His 
soul  is  full  of  hatred ;  he  has  the  innate  spontaneous 
malignity  which  some  critics  have  found  in  lago,  and 
have  attributed  to  the  creative  powers  of  Shakespeare, 
but  which  Shakespeare's  creation  is  entirely  and  not- 
ably without. 

It  was  no  mere  villain,  however  black,  no  mere  em- 
bodiment of  cruelty,  however  fiendish,  that  Shake- 
speare saw  in  his  idea  of  lago.  In  that  conception 


ON   THE   ACTING  OF   I  AGO.  271 

and  in  its  working  out  he  had  a  much  more  instruct- 
ing, if  not  instructive,  purpose.  Such  a  purpose  he 
seldom  seems  to  have ;  nor  does  his  own  feeling  toward 
his  evil  creatures  manifest  itself  except  on  very  rare 
occasions,  and  then  slightly  and  by  implication.  But 
upon  lago  he  manifestly  looked  with  loathing  and  with 
horror,  although  he  spent  upon  him  the  utmost  powers 
of  his  creative  art. 

In  lago  Shakespeare  has  presented  a  character  that 
could  not  have  escaped  his  observation ;  for  it  is  of 
not  uncommon  occurrence  except  in  one  of  its  ele- 
ments, —  utter  un scrupulousness.  But  for  this,  lago 
would  be  a  representative  type,  —  representative  of 
the  gifted,  scheming,  plausible,  and  pushing  man,  who 
gets  on  by  the  social  art  known  as  making  friends. 
This  man  is  often  met  with  in  society.  Sometimes  he 
is  an  adventurer,  like  lago,  but  most  commonly  he  is 
not ;  and  that  he  should  be  so  is  not  necessary  to  the 
perfection  of  his  character.  The  difference  in  social 
conduct  between  him  and  a  genuine  man  is  that  this 
one  is  simply  himself,  and  forms  friendships  (not  too 
many)  with  those  whom  he  likes  and  those  who,  tak- 
ing him  as  they  find  him,  like  him  ;  while  the  other 
lays  himself  out  to  make  friends,  doing  so  not  always 
with  the  direct  and  specific  purpose  of  establishing  a 
social  connection,  but  because  it  is  his  nature  to ;  as 
the  sea  monster  which  preys  upon  its  own  kind  throws 
out  its  alluring  bait  which  is  part  of  itself,  whether 
there  are  fellow-fish  in  sight  or  not.  This  is  not  only 
his  way  of  getting  on,  but  his  way  of  going  through 
life.  He  accomplishes  his  purpose  somewhat  by  flat- 
tery, of  course,  but  less  by  direct  flattery  than  by  an 
ever-springing  sympathy,  and  a  readiness  to  help 
others  in  the  little  affairs  in  which  their  vanity  or 
their  pleasure  is  concerned. 


272  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Sympathy  in  purposes  and  tastes  is  the  finest,  sub- 
tlest, most  insidious  flattery  ;  the  lack  of  it  repels  shal- 
low souls  and  thoughtless  minds  as  surely  as  a  rock 
will  turn  aside  a  shallow  brook,  —  and  how  many  men 
are  there  who  are  not  shallow,  and  who  do  think  ?  As 
to  helpfulness,  you  may  be  ready  to  watch  with  men 
when  they  are  ill,  to  fight  for  them  when  they  are  in 
peril,  to  relieve  them  when  they  are  in  trouble  ;  but  if 
you  are  careless  about  their  little  vanities  and  their  lit- 
tle pleasures,  you  will  be  set  down  by  most  of  them  as 
ill-natured,  selfish,  and  cold-hearted.  The  opportuni- 
ties of  doing  real  service  are  rare  ;  the  union  of  op- 
portunity and  ability  is  still  rarer;  but  every  day 
brings  occasion  to  gratify  the  prurience  of  your  neigh- 
bor's vanity  by  the  tickling  of  direct  flattery,  or  to 
soothe  it  with  the  soft  caress  of  seeming  sympathy. 
The  men  who  become  popular,  the  women  who  achieve 
social  success  (except  by  the  brute  force  of  sheer 
money),  are  not  those  who  are  ready  to  visit  the  father- 
less and  the  widow  in  their  affliction,  or  who  have  in 
their  hearts  that  charity  which  seeketh  not  its  own, 
which  thinketh  no  evil,  but  which  beareth  all  things, 
believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all 
things ;  they  are  rather  they  who  do  seek  their  own, 
and  who  think  much  evil,  but  who  are  ready  to  minis- 
ter to  the  vanity  and  to  serve  the  interests  of  those 
around  them.  And  chiefly  they  are  the  former ;  for 
not  only  are  opportunities  of  service,  even  in  small 
matters,  comparatively  rare,  but  the  memory  of  ser- 
vice, substantial  although  it  be,  is  not  fed  upon  daily, 
like  the  words  and  sympathetic  acts  that  are  so  hun- 
grily swallowed  into  the  bottomless  maw  of  human 
vanity.  He  who  once  promoted  his  friend's  interest 
in  a  serious  matter  is  less  sure  of  being  remembered 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  IAGO.  273 

with  pleasure  and  gratitude  than  he  who  daily  burns 
sweet-smelling  incense  before  his  nostrils. 

Therefore,  if  you  would  get  on,  if  you  would  make 
to  yourself  friends  of  the  mammon  of  unrighteous- 
ness, —  as,  if  you  are  provident,  you  will,  —  if  you 
would  become  popular,  flatter ;  flatter  in  every  way, 
by  word  and  deed;  flatter  everybody,  without  dis- 
crimination. For  although  this  ought  to  make  your 
praise  actually  worthless,  even  as  flattery,  the  number 
of  those  who  will  remember  anything  else  than  this 
sign  of  your  good-will  to  them,  and  their  pleasure 
while  they  were  in  the  company  of  such  a  warm- 
hearted and  truly  appreciative  person  as  you  are  will 
be  so  small  that,  in  reckoning  the  social  forces  which 
you  have  to  mano3uvre,  they  need  not  be  counted. 
Nor  let  your  flattery  stop  with  words.  Be  ready  to 
further  all  the  little  projects  of  your  acquaintances  in 
which  their  personal  vanity  is  involved.  Help  your 
stupid,  pompous,  ambitious  friend  to  a  place  on  a  com- 
mittee that  will  bring  his  name  into  print  in  a  desirable 
connection.  Do  all  you  can  to  make  the  receptions  of 
his  awkward,  vulgar,  overdressed  wife  brilliant,  and 
—  yet  more  important  —  do  all  that  you  can  to  make 
her  believe  that  they  are  brilliant.  If  to  such  charm- 
ing social  qualities  you  can  add  a  reputation  for  candor 
and  good  faith,  —  which  you  can  do  by  your  art,  if  you 
are  worthy  of  the  highest  social  honors,  and  in  which 
you  will  be  aided  by  the  readiness  of  people  to  believe 
in  the  candor  of  such  an  appreciative  and  sympathetic 
person  as  you  are,  —  you  will  attain  the  height  of 
popularity,  and  find  all  around  you  ready  to  promote 
your  interests  and  rejoice  in  your  good  fortune.  You 
will  have  made  everybody  your  friend. 

This  sort  of  friend-maker  is,  as  I  have  said,  common 

18 


274  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

enough  ;  but  he  rarely  attains  perfection,  because  he 
is  rarely  able  to  prevent  his  own  personal  likings  and 
dislikings  from  influencing  his  conduct  in  some  degree, 
and  dulling  the  flavor  of  his  flattery,  or  checking  the 
effusiveness  of  his  sympathy.  He  has,  however,  one 
quality  in  which  he  is  complete :  he  is  thoroughly 
selfish,  —  to  the  bottom  of  his  soul.  Amid  all  his 
good-fellowship,  his  conviviality,  with  all  his  heartiness 
of  manner,  his  cheering  speeches,  and  his  ready  sym- 
pathy, he  has  a  sharp  outlook  for  his  own  interest. 
The  one  constant  thought  of  his  life  is  to  get  on. 
This  man  who  falls  in  with  your  humor,  who  slaps  you 
(morally,  if  not  physically)  on  the  back,  who  makes 
you  feel  so  well  satisfied  with  yourself,  and  who  is  so 
ready  to  help  you,  if  not  to  that  which  you  really 
need,  to  that  which  you  vainly  fancy,  —  if  not  to  the 
favor  of  Desdernona,  to  that  of  Bianca,  —  has  a  single 
eye  to  his  own  advantage  and  his  own  profit.  Watch 
him,  and  see  how  he  prospers.  See  how,  although  he 
makes  friends  of  all,  he  attaches  himself  to  the  power- 
ful, the  rich,  the  successful ;  but  chiefly  see  how  he 
uses  all,  rich  and  poor,  great  and  small,  for  his  own 
advancement.  Watch  him  closely  enough,  and  you 
will  discover  that  this  genial  fellow,  who  radiates 
loving-kindness,  is  at  heart  stonily  indifferent  to  any- 
thing but  self. 

It  was  this  kind  of  man  that  Shakespeare  chose  as 
the  type  of  supremest  villany.  His  lago  is  first  and 
chiefly  the  most  popular  young  man  in  Venice.  He 
has  assiduously  made  himself  so,  because  he  knows 
that  all  his  ability  (which  he  does  not  in  the  least 
overrate)  will  not  help  him  on  so  much  as  popularity 
will ;  and  that  popularity  brings  not  only  success  in 
the  long  run,  but  immediate  opportunities  of  gain. 


ON    THE   ACTING  OF   IAGO.  275 

He  makes  friends  everywhere,  —  with  the  great  ones 
of  the  state,  but  no  less  with  the  Roderigos.  He  wins 
everybody  to  trust  him,  in  matters  good  and  bad  in- 
differently, that  their  confidence  may  be  his  profit. 

Thus  far  lago's  character  is  one  not  rare  in  any 
society  nor  at  any  time.  Yet  it  has  been  misappre- 
hended ;  and  the  cause  of  its  misapprehension  is  the 
one  element  in  which  it  is  peculiar.  lago  is  troubled 
with  110  scruples,  absolutely  none.  He  has  intellectual 
perceptions  of  right  and  wrong,  but  he  is  utterly  with- 
out the  moral  sense.  He  has  but  one  guide  of  conduct, 
—  self-interest.  We  hear  it  said  of  this  or  that  man 
that  his  ruling  motive  is  self-interest,  and  that  he  is 
unscrupulous.  But,  fortunately  for  the  world,  men 
who  are  wholly  without  scruples,  and  who  know  no 
other  guide  of  conduct  than  self-interest,  are  so  very 
rare  that  few  of  us  have  the  opportunity  of  observ- 
ing them.  Very  selfish  and  very  unscrupulous  men 
we  may  all  see.  We  may  suffer  from  them  ourselves ; 
and  if  we  do  not  we  may  loathe  them  for  their  cruel 
disregard  of  the  interests  and  the  happiness  of  others, 
when  these  clash  with  their  interests  or  their  pleasures. 
But  almost  all  such  men  have  a  limit,  if  not  to  their 
selfishness,  at  least  to  their  moral  unscrupulousness. 
They  will  be  very  bold  and  very  disregardful  of  right 
and  wrong  up  to  a  certain  point ;  and  that  may  be 
near  the  vanishing  point  of  moral  sense.  But  there  is 
a  degree  of  moral  recklessness  at  which  they  stop ; 
and  the  consequence  frequently  is  failure  and  some- 
times ruin,  —  failure  and  ruin  which  might  have  been 
turned  into  success  by  pushing  past  the  scruple,  and 
disregarding  everything,  everything  but  the  selfish 
end  in  view.  Well  for  the  world's  peace  that  it  is  so. 
For  if  to  ability  a  man  unites  thorough  unscrupulous- 


276  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

ness,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  evil  he  may  do  ;  abso- 
lutely none,  except  the  limit  which  is  put  by  the  end 
of  him. 

Now  to  his  ability,  his  popular  manners,  his  reputa- 
tion for  honesty  and  courage,  and  his  supreme  selfish- 
ness lago  added  that  great  accomplishment  and  per- 
fection of  complete  villany,  an  absolute  indifference 
to  right  and  wrong.  It  was  mere  indifference.  He 
had  no  special  preference  for  wrong-doing.  If  by 
doing  right  he  could  have  prospered  as  well  as  by 
doing  wrong,  he  would  have  done  right,  because  right- 
doing  is  more  respectable  and  popular  and  less  trouble- 
some than  wrong-doing.  But  for  right  and  wrong  in 
themselves  he  had  neither  like  nor  dislike  ;  and  there 
was  no  limit  to  the  degree  of  wrong  that  he  was  ready 
to  do  to  attain  his  ends,  —  this  fellow  of  exceeding 
honesty,  who  knew  all  qualities  with  a  discerning 
spirit,  and  whose  daily  life  was  an  expression  of  love 
and  sympathy.  And  his  capacity  of  evil  was  passive 
as  well  as  active.  He  did  not  quite  like  it  (for  some 
unexplained  reason)  that  there  was  reason  to  suspect 
his  wife  with  Othello ;  but  yet  he  had  borne  the 
scandal  prudently,  lest  resentment  might  interfere 
with  his  promotion.  But  when  Cassio  was  made  his 
general's  lieutenant  the  disappointed  man  coolly  reck- 
oned the  former  fact  as  one  of  the  motives  of  his 
action.  His  main  purpose,  however,  indeed  his  only 
real  purpose,  was  to  ruin  Cassio  and  get  his  place. 
As  the  readiest  and  the  most  thorough  method  of 
ruining  Cassio  was  to  ruin  Desdemona  with  him,  well : 
Desdemona  must  be  ruined,  and  there  an  end  ;  no 
more  words  about  the  matter.  But  her  ruin  in  this 
way  must  surely  involve  her  death  at  Othello's  hands. 
Well,  then  she  must  be  murdered  by  her  husband  ; 


ON   THE  ACTING   OF  IAGO.  277 

that 's  all.  But  this  would  torture  Othello.  No  matter. 
All  the  better,  perhaps,  —  serve  him  right  for  prefer- 
ring that  theorizing  military  dandy  to  the  place  which 
belonged  to  a  better  soldier. 

lago,  however,  had  no  thought  of  driving  Othello  to 
suicide.  Far  from  it.  Had  he  supposed  the  train  he 
laid  would  have  exploded  in  that  catastrophe,  he  would 
at  least  have  sought  his  end  by  other  means.  For 
Othello  was  necessary  to  him.  He  wanted  the  lieu- 
tenancy ;  and  he  was  willing  to  ruin  a  regiment  of 
Cassios,  and  to  cause  all  the  senators'  daughters  in 
Venice  to  be  smothered,  if  that  were  necessary  to  his 
end.  But  otherwise  he  would  not  have  stepped  out  of 
his  path  to  do  them  the  slightest  injury ;  nay,  rather 
would  have  done  them  some  little  service,  said  some 
pretty  thing,  shown  some  attaching  sympathy,  that 
would  have  been  an  item  in  the  sum  of  his  popularity. 
There  is  no  mistaking  Shakespeare's  intention  in  the 
delineation  of  this  character.  He  meant  him  for  a 
most  attractive,  popular,  good-natured,  charming,  sel- 
'  fish,  cold-blooded  and  utterly  unscrupulous  scoundrel. 
The  fact  that  pains  are  taken  to  show  us  that  his  very 
wife  had  confidence  to  the  last  not  only  in  the  good- 
ness of  his  heart,  but,  notwithstanding  his  suspicions 
of  her  (which  she  well  knew),  in  his  good  faith  to 
Othello,  can  have  but  one  meaning  and  one  purpose. 

As  to  the  presentation  of  lago  on  the  stage,  the 
indications  are  that  it  should  be  somewhat  in  this 
wise :  His  make-up  and  costume  should  be  that  of  a 
dashing  young  military  officer.  In  the  first  act  he 
should  wear  velvet  and  lace.  In  the  second,  when 
he  lands  from  the  ship,  he  should  be  in  armor, — 
breastplate  and  back-piece,  cuirasses,  vant-bras,  and 
gorget,  which  he  should  retain  throughout  this  act ; 


278  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

nor  afterwards  should  he  be  without  a  marked  mili- 
tary exterior.  His  manner  and  bearing  should  be  re- 
markable for  ease,  frankness,  and  an  overflowing 
kindness  ;  and  in  particular  he  should  be  gay  in  a 
soldierly  and  slightly  blunt  fashion.  He  should  seem 
to  carry  the  lightest  heart  of  all  the  personages  of  the 
drama,  and  should  be  the  last  one  of  them  whom  a 
spectator  uninformed  as  to  the  nature  and  story  of  the 
play  would  suppose  to  have  an  evil  design  or  a  selfish 
purpose,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  one  whom  such  a 
person  would  pick  out  as  the  warmest  hearted,  the 
most  trustworthy,  and  the  merriest  of  them  all.  His 
manner  towards  Othello  should  be  that  of  a  subordi- 
nate to  a  heroic  superior  whom  he  loves  and  almost 
worships.  To  Desdemona  he  should  bear  himself  with 
a  mixture  of  deference,  admiration,  and  coarse  mas- 
culine cynicism.  To  Cassio  he  should  behave  like  a 
brother  in  arms,  with  perhaps  an  occasional  slight  ex- 
cess of  deference  to  his  superior  officer,  indicative  of 
the  jealousy  that  rankles  in  his  bosom.  To  Emilia  he 
should  carry  himself  with  a  blunt  and  over-topping 
marital  good-nature.  And  he  should  avoid  all  side 
glances  of  spite  and  hate  and  suspicion  ;  and  except 
when  he  is  quite  alone,  and  communing  with  himself, 
no  one  either  off  the  stage  or  on  it  should  see  the 
slightest  reason  to  suspect  that  he  is  a  villain,  or  to 
doubt  the  genuineness  of  his  gayety  and  good-nature. 
It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  in  the  carousal  scene,  in 
the  beginning  of  the  second  act,  he  is  the  gayest  of 
all.  He  alone  sings  a  drinking-song  ;  and  soon  again 
he  sings  a  jolly  ballad.  His  is  the  only  singing  voice 
heard  in  the  course  of  the  drama,  except  poor  Desde- 
mona's.  His  distinguishing  external  traits  are  sincer- 
ity, warmth  of  heart,  and  a  light-hearted,  soldierly 


ON  THE  ACTING  OF  IAGO.  279 

gayety.  His  utter  baseness  and  cold  cruelty  of  soul 
should  appear  in  the  heartiness  and  simplicity  of  his 
manner  in  the  scenes  in  which  he  tempts  and  tortures 
Othello,  and  in  the  quick  alternation  between  his 
friendly  and  sympathetic  interviews  with  Roderigo 
and  Cassio  and  his  killing  the  one  and  wounding  the 
other.  Both  these  murders  (murders  in  intent)  were, 
however,  merely  to  remove  in  the  quickest  and  surest 
way  obstacles  to  his  purpose.  His  only  exhibition  of 
personal  malice  is  in  the  killing  his  wife,  who  is  the 
chief  cause  of  the  final  failure  of  his  schemes.  He 
does  not  slay  her  with  any  purpose  of  avenging  her 
imputed  dishonor  of  him  with  the  Moor ;  there  is  no 
such  saving  likeness  between  even  the  savage  sides  of 
their  natures.  He  rather  had  submitted  to  that  wrong 
in  politic  silence,  willing  to  accept  it  as  one  of  the  steps 
in  his  promotion. 

This  is  the  lago  that  Shakespeare  drew,  —  a  man 
whom  he  had  seen,  and  whom  we  all  have  often  seen, 
moving  through  society  and  making  friends  on  every 
side,  and  who  yet  at  bottom  is  utterly  selfish,  stony- 
hearted, and  grasping.  The  dramatist  added  to  the 
traits  of  this  common  type  only  the  element  of  abso- 
lute unscrupulousness,  which,  although  rare,  is  possi- 
bly not  so  rare  as  the  course  of  events  might  lead  us 
to  suppose.  The  moral  of  lago's  part  in  the  tragedy 
is  :  Distrust  the  man  whose  peculiar  faculty,  or  chief 
desire,  is  to  make  friends.  He  is  likely  to  be  selfish  ; 
and  if  selfish  he  needs  only  temptation  and  opportu- 
nity to  be  a  scoundrel. 

There  is  but  one  difficulty  about  this  presentation  of 
lago.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  average  modern 
theatre-goer  would  regard  it  as  a  tame  and  spiritless 
performance  ;  and  the  business  of  the  actor  is  to  please 
the  average  theatre-goer. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS. 

WHEN,  some  eleven  or  twelve  years  ago,  Mr.  Collier's 
annotated  second  folio  copy  of  Shakespeare's  works  sank 
finally  out  of  sight,  there  was  reason  to  hope  that  no  fur- 
ther attempts  would  be  made  upon  the  text  of  that  much- 
abused  author.  And  indeed  it  may  be  safely  assumed  that 
no  changes  will  hereafter  be  made  in  it  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  bring  a  considerable  reputation  to  any  new  editor 
or  new  edition.  Since  the  time  spoken  of,  two  editions 
of  note  have  been  published ;  one  edited  by  the  Rev.  Al- 
exander Dyce  (his  second),  which  appeared  in  1864-66, 
and  the  Cambridge  edition,  edited  by  the  Rev.  William 
George  Clarke,  M.  A.,  and  William  Aldis  Wright,  both  of 
Trinity  College,  the  publication  of  which,  although  it  began 
in  1863,  was  not  finished  until  1866.  The  latter  work  is 
the  most  valuable  single  contribution  that  has  been  made  to 
Shakespearean  literature.  Its  editors  announced,  as  one  of 
its  distinctive  features,  that  its  text  was  based  on  a  thorough 
collation  of  the  four  folios,  and  of  all  tho  quarto  editions  of 
the  separate  plays,  and  of  subsequent  editions  and  commen- 
taries. In  this  respect,  however,  it  does  not  differ  from  the 
first  edition  produced  by  the  present  writer.1  The  peculiar 
value  of  the  Cambridge  edition  consists  in  the  presentation 

1  The  Works  of  William  Shakespeare:  the  Plays  edited  from  the 
folio  of  MDCXXIII.,  with  various  readings  from  all  the  editions  and  all 
the  commentators,  Notes,  Introductory  Remarks,  a  Historical  Sketch  of 
the  Text,  an  Account  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  English  Drama,  a 
Memoir  of  the  Poet,  and  an  Essay  upon  his  Genius.  The  date  of  this 
edition  has  been  incorrectly  given  by  some  editors  and  bibliographers  as 
1859-65.  The  Comedies  were  published  in  1857  ;  the  Histories,  in  1859  ', 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  281 

at  the  foot  of  the  page,  without  comment,  of  all  the  various 
readings  of  every  passage,  whether  found  in  the  four  folios, 
in  the  quartos,  in  subsequent  editions,  or  proposed  in  the 
works  of  commentators  who  did  not  become  editors,  and  in 
the  printing  literatim  of  the  text  of  such  quarto  editions  as 
differ  so  much  from  that  accepted  by  the  editors  that  the 
variation  could  not  be  shown  in  notes.  The  readings 
printed  at  the  foot  of  the  page  are  given  in  the  order  of 
time  in  which  they  were  introduced  into  the  text  or  pro- 
posed; and  thus,  for  all  ordinary  purposes,  even  in  the 
critical  study  of  the  text,  the  reader  finds  himself  com- 
pletely furnished.  The  text  of  the  Cambridge  edition  is  not 
intended  for  general  readers  of  Shakespeare.  Its  editors 
admitted  no  conjectural  reading  because  they  thought  it 
"  better  system  or  grammar  or  sense  "  than  that  of  the  folio, 
unless  they  also  thought  the  reading  of  the  latter  "  altogether 
impossible ;  "  and,  moreover,  to  be  received  into  their  text,  a 
conjectural  emendation  must  appear  "  the  only  probable 
one."  If  the  defect  can  be  made  good  in  more  ways  than 
one,  equally  plausible  or  at  least  equally  possible,  they  have 
allowed  the  corruption  to  remain  intact,  while  the  proposed 
emendations  are  offered  in  the  footnotes  to  the  choice  of 
the  reader.  This,  however,  in  no  way  diminishes  the  great, 
and  it  may  be  safely  said,  the  inestimable  value  of  this  edi- 
tion to  the  critical  student  of  the  poet.  For  him  no  one 
edition  will  supply  its  place,  while  it  supplies  the  place  not 
only  of  many  editions,  but  of  many  books  of  comment  be- 
sides. 

Mr.  Dyce's  edition  (1864-66)  is  called  the  second ;  and 
it  is  the  second  edition  of  Shakespeare  that  he  prepared 
for  the  press.  But  it  is  not  properly  so  styled  if  there  is 
an  implication  that  the  latter  work  has  any  other  connec- 
tion with  the  former  than  that  they  both  are  the  produc- 

the  Tragedies,  in  1862  ;  and  the  first  volume,  containing  memoir,  essays, 
etc.,  in  1865.  The  Comedies  were  published  before  the  appearance  of  Mr. 
Dyce's  first  edition  (in  1857),  and  both  Comedies  and  Histories  before  Mr. 
W.  S.  Walker's  Critical  Examination,  etc.  (18603. 


282  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

tion  of  the  same  author ;  for  one  differs  from  the  other  as 
much  as  if  they  were  the  work  of  two  editors  of  different 
taste  and  different  critical  views.  Mr.  Dyce  was  one  of  the 
most  cultivated  of  that  modern  school  of  critics  which  has 
made  the  study  and  the  restoration  of  Shakespeare's  text  a 
special  study.  He  had  an  acquaintance  both  wide  and 
minute  with  all  the  literature  of  Shakespeare's  time,  and  he 
had,  besides,  high  training  and  very  considerable  acquire- 
ments in  general  literature  and  in  art.  Having  a  compe- 
tent fortune,  he  was  able  to  pursue  his  studies  and  his  grate- 
ful labors  at  pleasure,  and  to  mature  his  opinions  and  his 
plans  before  he  began  the  task  of  preparing  his  work  for 
the  press.  His  editions  of  Peele,  Greene,  and  Marlowe  ex- 
hibited the  qualities  of  mind  which  have  here  just  been 
most  respectfully  awarded  to  him  ;  and  it  seemed  as  if,  with 
this  preparation  and  practice,  he  might  have  been  reason- 
ably expected  to  produce  the  ideal  edition  of  Shakespeare. 
But  he  did  not.  He  issued  two  within  seven  years  (the 
first  in  1857)  ;  and  unlike  as  they  were,  they  both  fell  about 
equally  short  of  that  degree  of  merit  which  is  necessary  to 
distinguished  excellence  and  permanent  reputation.  They 
showed  learning  and  faithfulness,  and  one  very  valuable 
quality,  intellectual  candor.  The  mental  traits  of  which 
they  exhibited  the  lack  were  clear  perception,  imagination, 
and  the  power  of  sympathy.  Mr.  Dyce  seemed  never  able 
to  step  from  the  outside  of  the  poet's  work  inward,  and  to 
think  with  him.  Critical  sagacity  has  recently  been  attrib- 
uted to  him ;  but  sagacity  was  just  the  quality  he  lacked. 
As  a  critic  and  editor  he  was  entirely  deficient  in  formative 
power.  His  fastidiousness  led  him  to  be  generally  timid, 
but  he  was  sometimes  bold,  or  rather  rash. 

An  example  of  what  he  would  and  could  do  when  he 
made  a  rush  past  the  bounds  of  his  usual  self-limitation,  is 
shown  in  a  reading  which  is  praised  in  an  article  in  the 
"  Edinburgh  Ke view "  *  which  attracted  much  attention  at 
the  time  of  its  publication,  and  is  still  referred  to  in  Shake- 
i  July,  1869. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  283 

spearean  criticism.    At  the  end  of  Hamlet's  censure  (Act  I. 
Sc.  4)  of  the  Danish  custom  of  carousal  is  this  passage  :  — 

The  dram  of  eale 

Doth  all  the  noble  substance  of  a  dout 
To  his  own  scandal. 

There  is  no  sense  in  this,  and  yet  there  is  the  suggestion 
of  a  very  fine  sense,  and  one  which  points  and  barbs  the 
well-aimed  sentence  that  it  tips.  Few  thoughtful  and  ap- 
prehensive readers  of  Shakespeare  can  fail  to  see,  though 
dimly,  the  idea  he  meant  to  present  to  them  ;  but,  neverthe- 
less, the  efforts  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  textual 
criticism  have  not  been  able  to  restore  that  passage,  which 
is  left  undisturbed  in  my  own  edition,  and,  of  course,  in 
the  Cambridge.  Mr.  Dyce  reads  :  — 

The  dram  of  evil 

Doth  all  the  noble  substance  oft  debase, 
To  his  own  scandal. 

This  affords  a  good  sense,  and  one  entirely  in  accordance 
with  that  of  the  whole  speech  ;  indeed,  this  very  emendation 
must  have  occurred  to  all  editors,  and  to  many  readers  out- 
side the  critical  circle.  There  is  but  one  objection  to  it :  to 
edit  Shakespeare's  text  thus  is  to  rewrite  it  in  all  obscure 
passages.  Decide  what  you  would  like  to  have,  and  put  it 
boldly  into  the  text.  This  is  the  very  reverse  of  what  is  done 
by  the  Cambridge  editors  ;  and  Mr.  Dyce's  text  is  therefore 
readable  from  the  beginning  of  "  The  Tempest "  to  the  end 
of  "  Cymbeline."  How  near  it  is,  in  disputed  passages,  to 
what  Shakespeare  wrote,  is  another  question.  In  this  re- 
spect, however,  it  will  compare  pretty  well  with  that  of  other 
modern  editors ;  but  notwithstanding  the  editor's  many 
qualifications  for  his  task,  it  is  very  far  from  having  any  dis- 
tinctive merit.  The  reason  of  this  I  happen  to  know. 

Mr.  Dyce  is  no  longer  living,  and  his  death  is  mourned 
by  all  who  knew  him ;  for  he  was  one  of  the  most  estimable 
of  men,  as  well  as  one  who  had  done  good  service  in  the 
field  of  letters.  He  was  a  man  for  whom,  although  I  never 
saw  him,  I  had  a  very  high  respect,  and  whom  I  had  reason 


284  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

to  regard  with  a  somewhat  warmer  feeling  than  that  of  a 
mere  literary  acquaintance.  This,  and  my  deference  to  his 
age  (he  happened  to  he  born  in  the  same  year  with  my 
father)  and  his  position,  prevented  me  from  saying  during 
his  life  \vhat  there  is  no  reason  that  I  should  not  say  now,  — 
that  in  my  opinion  he  was  one  of  the  most  unsuccessful  of 
Shakespeare's  editors.  With  all  my  deferential  respect  for 
him,  I  was  prepared  for  this  result  before  the  appearance  of 
the  first  of  his  three  editions.  The  records  of  his  literary 
life  are  now,  within  certain  limits,  the  property  of  the  world  ; 
and  I  may,  therefore,  with  propriety,  mention  a  fact  to 
which,  during  his  life,  I  did  not  give  publicity.  When  his 
first  edition  —  that  of  1857  —  was  passing  through  the 
press,  he  wrote  to  me  that  there  would  be  much  delay  in  its 
appearance,  because  after  the  most  of  it  was  ready  for  the 
printer,  and  half  was  actually  in  type,  he  changed  his  views 
upon  so  many  and  such  important  points  that  the  consequent 
alterations  obliged  him  not  only  to  rewrite  much  of  his  copy, 
but  to  cancel  a  large  part  of  what  had  already  been  printed, 
amounting  to  half  the  work.  This  letter,  while  it  raised 
my  respect  for  the  writer's  faithfulness  to  his  intellectual 
convictions,  much  lowered  my  estimate  of  Mr.  Dyce  as  a 
critic  and,  consequently,  as  an  editor.  A  man  who,  being 
at  leisure  to  pursue  his  studies,  had  lived  a  purely  literary 
life,  who  had  the  experience  given  by  the  editing  of  four 
other  Elizabethan  dramatists,  who  was  at  the  ripe  age  of 
sixty  years,  and  who,  after  preparing  himself  thoroughly  for 
an  edition  of  Shakespeare,  could  change  his  views  upon  so 
many  and  such  important  points  when  he  was  nearly  through 
his  labors  that  he  was  obliged  to  destroy  no  small  part  of 
what  he  had  already  sent  to  press,  must  be  without  any 
principles  of  criticism,  and  not  only  so,  but  without  any 
opinions  really  worthy  of  the  name.  I  no  longer  expected 
from  him  —  what  I  had  expected  and  hoped  for  and  had  al- 
most presumed  to  promise  on  his  behalf  —  an  edition  of  the 
highest  quality ; l  and  when  his  edition  did  appear  I  was 
1  See  Shakespeare's  Scholar,  p.  30,  and  passim. 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  285 

not  disappointed.  It  was  full  of  valuable  matter,  and  of  in- 
structive criticism  ;  it  was  carefully  and  minutely  edited  ; 
but  it  was  nothing  more.  It  was  dry,  vague,  unsatisfactory, 
without  unity  of  purpose,  without  character.  I  was,  there- 
fore, not  surprised,  although  again  I  received  the  shock  of 
an  unfavorable  impression,  when  he  wrote  to  me,  in  1862, 
that  he  was  preparing  a  second  edition  of  his  Shakespeare, 
and  that  he  was  "  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of  altering 
it  from  beginning  to  end,  in  fact  of  making  it  very,  very  dif- 
ferent, both  in  text  and  notes,  from  the  former  edition." 

Here  was  (in  fact)  a  third  edition  of  Shakespeare  within 
seven  years,  from  a  man  of  Mr.  Dyce's  acquirements  and 
experience,  each  edition  differing  greatly  from  the  other, 
both  in  text  and  notes.  Could  instability  and  lack  of  intel- 
lectual character  and  purpose  be  more  clearly  shown  ?  The 
edition,  when  it  appeared,  fully  justified  the  editor's  predic- 
tion of  its  variation  from  its  predecessor.  Except  for  its  in- 
dications of  the  same  feeble,  vacillating  mind,  it  might  have 
been  the  work  of  another  man  than  the  editor  of  the  first 
edition.  It  was  in  some  respects  better,  in  others  worse 
than  that  one.  And  I  do  not  doubt  that  if  Mr.  Dyce  had 
lived  a  few  years  longer  he  would  have  given  us  yet  a  third, 
or  rather  a  fourth  edition,  differing  greatly  from  either  of 
its  predecessors,  and  being,  like  the  last,  in  some  respects 
better,  and  in  others  worse,  than  its  predecessor.1 

To  his  second  edition  Mr.  Dyce  appended  a  glossary  so 
copious  that  it  fills  a  large  octavo  volume  :  a  glossary  gener- 
ally correct,  which  at  this  stage  of  Shakespearean,  linguis- 
tic, and  antiquarian  study,  it  could  hardly  fail  to  be,  even 
if  compiled  by  a  less  accomplished  scholar  than  he.  It  is 
largely  composed  of  definitions,  or  longer  glosses,  quoted 
from  the  pages  of  other  Shakespearean  critics  and  editors  ; 
but  while  it  adds  little  to  our  previously  acquired  knowledge 
of  Shakespeare's  words  and  phrases,  and  even  in  a  much 

l  This  opinion,  published  in  1869,  I  found  on  my  visit  to  England  in 
1876  (my  first)  supported  in  private  conversation  by  that  of  the  best 
Shakespearean  scholars  in  the  country. 


286  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

less  degree  aids  in  their  apprehension,  it  may  be  trusted, 
with  comparatively  rare  exceptions,  by  the  general  reader. 
It  has,  however,  in  a  notable  degree,  the  great  fault  of  ex- 
cessive superfluity  ;  which,  indeed,  is  more  than  a  fault  —  a 
vice  ;  begetting  in  the  reader  indolence  of  mind,  distrust  of 
himself,  distrust  of  his  knowledge  of  his  mother  tongue, 
misapprehension  of  the  condition  and  character  of  that 
tongue  now  and  in  the  days  of  Shakespeare.  The  Dyce 
glossary  includes  (on  a  rough  calculation)  some  six  thousand 
items.  It  attains  this  dimension,  in  the  first  place,  by 
including  not  only  all  obsolete,  but  all  unusual  words,  com- 
mon words  used  in  uncommon  senses,  and  with  shades  of 
meaning,  however  clear  and  obvious  which  are  at  all  pecu- 
liar, to  Shakespeare  ;  not  only  words,  but  phrases  ;  not  only 
words  and  phrases,  but  proverbial  sayings,  however  com- 
mon in  literature  and  however  well-known  at  this  day; 
with  explanations  of  customs  more  or  less  obsolete,  and 
allusions  more  or  less  obscure.  Besides  all  this,  much  of 
which  it  need  hardly  be  said  errs  on  the  side  of  excess,  it 
is  superfluous  in  giving  definitions  of  words  and  explana- 
tions of  phrases  which  are  in  common  use  by  all  writers  of 
English  at  the  present  day,  and  which  are  now  daily  on 
the  lips  of  all  English-speaking  people,  and  by  repetitions 
which  are  merely  the  use  of  the  same  word  as  verb  or  as 
substantive  in  the  singular  and  in  the  plural. 

We  find,  for  example,  these  words  and  glosses ;  abate  =  to 
lower,  to  depress  :  abide  —  to  sojourn,  to  tarry  awhile  :  abso- 
lute =  determined :  blench=  to  start  off,  and  then  blenches 
=  starts  or  aberrations,  etc. :  dumps  =  low-spirited  :  crab  = 
wild-apple  :  close  =  secret  :  bold  =  confident :  fearful  — 
timid  :  farrow  =  a  litter  of  pigs  :  merit  =  reward :  unprized 
=  not  valued  :  trenchant  =  cutting,  sharp  :  blent  —  blended  : 
hangman  =  an  executioner  :  happiness  =.  good  fortune :  don 
=  to  put  on  :  doff=  to  put  off  :  tell  =  to  count :  kindle  =  to 
incite :  impawn  =  to  pawn  or  pledge  :  and  hundreds  of  others 
which  are  in  equally  common  every-day  use  by  all  writers 
and  speakers  of  English.  Under  the  letter  "  F  "  I  find  five 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  287 

separate  items,  filling  one  third  of  an  octavo  page,  made  of 
the  word  face,  used  in  senses  known  to  every  one,  as  "  to 
patch,"  "to  face  down,"  "to  carry  a  false  appearance," 
etc.  ;  two  in  like  manner  of  fee  ;  of  foot,  five  ;  for  has  seven 
glosses,  all  equally  needless  ;  foree,  five  ;  free  does  not  escape 
three,  one  of  them  being  "  liberal "  !  and  front  we  are  actu- 
ally told  means  "  to  oppose  "  !  Indeed,  under  this  chance- 
chosen  letter,  "  F,"  I  find  three  hundred  and  thirty  items, 
more  or  less,  of  which  at  least  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
are  of  the  superfluous  sort  just  exampled.  With  all  this,  to 
be  sure,  there  is  much  which  is  valuable,  interesting  and  in- 
structive. Thus  made,  however,  no  wonder  that  the  glossary 
printed  in  large  type  fills  a  large  octavo  volume.  But  why 
not  print  Johnson's  or  Webster's  dictionary  as  a  Shakes- 
peare glossary,  and  have  done  with  it  ? 

I  hoped  that  I  had  finished  forever  with  various  read- 
ings and  conjectural  emendations  ;  but  perhaps  I  can  make 
it  worth  while  for  my  readers  and  myself  to  consider 
briefly  some  of  the  points  presented  by  the  Edinburgh  re- 
viewer, and  also  some  others  which  he  did  not  touch  upon. 

After  pointing  out  correctly,  although  with  some  super- 
fluity of  iUustration,  that  in  these  lines  spoken  by  Polonius, 

in  "  Hamlet,"  — 

And  thus  do  we  of  wisdom  and  of  reach, 
With  windlaces,  and  with  assays  of  bias, 
By  indirections  find  directions  out,  — 

Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

windlaces  does  not  mean  windlasses,  but  a  winding  and  cir- 
cuitous course,  and  also  that  when  Laertes,  commenting 
upon  Ophelia's  distribution  of  her  flowers,  calls  her  speech 
a  "  document  in  madness,"  document  has  its  etymological 
meaning,  "teaching,"  —  the  reviewer  turns  his  attention  to 
Ophelia's  "  virgin  crants."  As  to  the  latter  word  there  is 
not  the  least  room  for  doubt.  It  is  the  German  kranz,  a 
garland,  used  as  a  plural.  But  the  reviewer  makes  much  of 
showing  that  the  burial  of  a  maiden  in  the  north  of  Europe 
is  still  appropriately  marked,  as  in  the  case  of  Ophelia,  by 
the  presence  of  her  "  virgin  crants  and  maiden  strewments." 


288  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

The  fact  is  of  some  little  interest  in  the  history  of  manners 
and  customs  ;  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  elucidation 
or  illustration  of  Shakespeare's  text.  If  that  were  to  be 
edited  after  this  fashion,  there  would  be  no  end  to  the 
labors  of  editors,  and  hardly  a  limit  to  the  number  of  vol- 
umes required  for  a  thoroughly  annotated  edition. 

The  reviewer  then  turns  to  the  following  passage  in 
"Macbeth:"  — 

And  the  right-valiant  Banquo  walk'd  too  late  ; 
Whom  you  may  say,  if  't  please  you,  Fleance  kill'd  ; 
For  Fleance  fled.    Men  must  not  walk  too  late. 
Who  cannot  want  the  thought,  how  monstrous 
It  was  for  Malcolm  and  for  Donaldbain 
To  kill  their  gracious  father  ? 

Act  III.  Sc.  6. 

As  to  this,  he  quotes  the  criticism  and  the  reading  in 
"  Shakespeare's  Scholar,"  but  seems  to  be  ignorant  that  the 
view  there  taken  was  abandoned  in  my  edition  of  1857-62. 
He  shows,  what  no  one  with  a  respectable  knowledge  of  the 
language  was  ignorant  of,  that  want  was  and  is  used  in  the 
north  of  England  and  in  the  lowlands  of  Scotland  in  the 
sense  of  "  do  without ; "  thus,  a  farmer  asked  to  lend  his 
horse  will  reply  that  he  himself  "  cannot  want  the  horse  to- 
day." A  mare's-nest  of  the  largest  sort.  For  u  do  with- 
out "  is  exactly  the  sense  that  here  must  be  done  without. 
The  speaker  surely  means  to  ask,  Who  can  be  ivithout  the 
thought  how  monstrous  it  was  for  Malcolm  and  for  Donald- 
bain  to  kill  their  gracious  father  ? 

The  critic  then  shows  elaborately  that  sight  was  used  in 
Shakespeare's  day  in  the  sense  of  "  acquaintance,"  "  skill ;  " 
and  that  cheapen  meant  "to  examine  a  thing  offered  for 
sale,  with  a  view  of  buying  it,"  saying,  in  the  first  instance, 
and  implying  in  the  last,  that,  of  these  senses,  u  neither  critics 
nor  lexicographers  seem  to  be  aware  "  —  a  more  erroneous 
charge  than  which  could  scarcely  be  made.  No  man  fit  to 
edit  Shakespeare  could  be  ignorant  of  the  use  of  those 
words  in  those  senses.  He  takes  three  pages  to  show  that 
bezonian  ("  Under  which  king,  bezonian  — speak  or  die  !  ") 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  289 

is  obviously  used  by  Pistol  simply  as  a  thrasonical  phrase  of 
martial  contempt  for  the  bucolic  mind,  the  word  having 
been  used  in  Shakespeare's  time  to  mean  a  rustic,  clownish 
person.  This  also  was  well  known.  In  my  edition  bezonian 
is  compared  to  pleeb,  the  cadet  cant  of  West  Point  for  a 
rustic  recruit ;  and  in  Cotgrave's  Dictionary,  a  well-known 
authority  to  all  Shakespearean  scholars,  triquerelles  is  de- 
nned as  "slender  and  small  chitterlings  or  links,  also  a 
rascal  companie  or  a  roguish  crue  of  base  and  rude  bezo- 
nians,  ignorant  clowns,  scoundrels,  thag-rags." 

The  obscure  compound,  tender-hefted,  in  Lear's  speech, — 

Thy  tender-hefted  nature  shall  not  give 
Thee  o'er  to  harshness, 

Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

is  explained  by  the  reviewer  as  meaning  "tender-bodied, 
delicately-organized,  or,  more  literally,  finely-fleshed,"  be- 
cause heft  means  "  handle,"  and  "  tender-hefted  "  must  be 
"  finely  sheathed."  A  most  manifest  mare's-nest,  and  one 
at  which  every  editor  of  Shakespeare  must  have  looked,  and 
passed  by  on  the  other  side.  Lear's  thought  has  no  refer- 
ence to  Regan's  body,  but  to  her  soul.  What  had  her  body 
or  her  beauty  to  do  with  giving  her  over  to  harshness  ? 
There  is  possibly  a  misprint  of  tender-hearted,  although 
we  all  shun  such  a  simple  relief  of  our  difficulty,  and  linger 
in  the  sweet  obscurity  of  tender-hefted. 

Of  a  like  superfluousness  are  the  pages  which  this  writer 
gives  up  to  showing  the  meanings  of  balk,  lurch,  hilding, 
and  zany,  all  of  which  are  well  known  to  every  competent 
English  scholar.  For  instance,  he  is  at  much  pains  to  show, 
by  argument  and  illustration,  that  zany  means  "  not  so 
much  a  buffoon  and  mimic  as  the  obsequious  follower  of  a 
buffoon  and  the  attenuated  mime  of  a  mimic,"  and  that 
"•  this  feature  of  the  early  stage  has  descended  to  our  own 
times,  and  may  still  continually  be  found  in  all  its  vigor  in 
the  performances  of  the  circus."  Had  he  turned  to  my 
edition,  published  twelve  years  before,  he  would  have  found 
the  following  note  on  "  Twelfth  Night,"  Act  I.  Sc.  5  :  — 
19 


290  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

"No  better  than  fools'  zanies."  Those  who  have  happened  to  see  an 
old  New  England  Primer  with  the  cut  of  a  zany  for  the  Z,  need  not 
be  told  that  Donee  was  wrong  in  saying  that  the  zany  was  the  fool's 
bauble.  A  zany  was  a  fool's  fool,  or  a  clown  that  followed  a  tumbler  and 
vaulter.  His  representative  is  to  be  found  in  the  modern  circus. 

And  in  Duffeet's  poems  (A.  D.  1676)  are  the  following 

lines  :  — 

These  shallow  designs  and  the  plots  that  you.  cast 
Can  never  prevail  on  a  woman  that 's  chaste. 
If  such  humorous  folly  can  raise  love  in  any, 
Scaramouch  will  be  sooner  preferred  than  his  zany. 

Page  60. 

With  this  more  than  sufficient  notice  of  an  article  which 
is  the  fruit  of  learning  and  critical  ability,  but  which  re- 
ceived much  more  attention  than  was  due  to  the  novelty  of 
the  opinions  or  the  illustrations  of  Shakespeare  that  it  pre- 
sented, I  pass  to  the  consideration  of  a  few  passages  in  the 
text  upon  which  there  possibly  remains  some  little  to  be 
said. 

In  "The  Comedy  of  Errors,"  Act  IV.  Sc.  4,  Dromio  of 
Ephesus  says  to  his  master,  who  has  reproached  him  with 
being  sensible  to  nothing  but  blows,  like  an  ass,  "  I  am  an 
ass  indeed  :  you  may  prove  it  by  my  long  ears."  The  point 
of  Dromio's  reply  depends  upon  a  pronunciation  which  yet 
survives  among  people  of  his  class  in  England,  who  pro- 
nounce ears,  years.  The  context  shows  this  plainly ;  for 
Dromio  goes  on  to  say,  "  I  have  served  him  from  the  hour 
of  my  nativity  to  this  instant,  and  have  received  nothing 
but  blows."  The  Cambridge  editors  would  print  'ear,  mak- 
ing an  elision  of  y.  But  this  is  not  only  quite  unnecessary, 
but  would  also  take  the  life  of  the  little _  joke  of  the  speech. 
To  preserve  that,  it  is  only  necessary  to  pronounce  ears  as 
the  Cambridge  editors  must  hear  it  pronounced  by  the  col- 
lege scouts  every  day. 

Moreover,  like  most  well-known  wits,  Shakespeare  is 
credited  with  much  wit  and  some  wisdom  that  is  not  his. 
An  instance  of  this  is  Dogberry's  famous  apophthegm, 
"  Comparisons  are  odorous."  The  humor  of  the  mere  blun- 
der may  be  Shakespeare's ;  but  the  saying  is  to  be  found 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.          291 

in  contemporary  authors,  and  notably  in  the  following  pas- 
sage from  the  first  chapter  of  the  second  part  of  "Don 
Quixote : "  — 

£  Y  es  posible  que  vuesa  merced  no  sabe  que  las  comparaciones  que  se 
hacen  de  ingenio  a  ingenio,  de  valor  a  valor,  de  hermosura  a  hermosura, 
y  de  linage  a  linage,  son  siempre  odiosas  y  mal  recebidas  V 

that  is,  Is  it  possible  that  your  honor  does  not  know  that 
comparisons  made  between  genius  and  genius,  courage  and 
courage,  beauty  and  beauty,  birth  and  birth,  are  always 
"  odious  "  and  ill  received  ?  This  part  of  "  Don  Quixote  " 
was  not  published  until  fifteen  years  after  the  publication 
of  "  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  ;  "  but  Cervantes,  doubtless, 
was  not  indebted  to  Shakespeare  even  for  the  word  "  odious." 
The  adage,  we  may  be  sure,  was  common  to  all  Europe. 

In  "  Love's  Labour 's  Lost "  the  name  of  Armado's  page 
has  been  always  printed  Moth,  even  in  my  own  edition,  in 
which,  however,  it  was  asserted  and  maintained  that  the 
proper  spelling  and  pronunciation  of  the  name  is  Mote; 
the  comparison  intended  being  not  to  the  insect  but  to  the 
mote  of  the  sunbeam.  This  was  shown  on  the  one  hand  by 
the  following  passage  from  the  same  play,  in  which  Shake- 
speare spelled  mote,  moth :  — 

You  found  his  moth,  the  King  your  moth  did  see, 

and  this  from  King  John  (Act  IV.  Sc.  1)  :  — 

Hubert.  None  but  to  lose  your  eyes. 

Arthur.     0  heaven,  that  there  were  but  a  moth  in  yours  ! 

This  spelling  is  consequent  upon  the  pronunciation  of  th  as 
t  in  Shakespeare's  time,  which  was  asserted  in  my  edition, 
to  be  denied  stoutly  in  several  quarters,  by  Mr.  Marsh 
among  others;  but  he,  having  become  convinced  of  the 
soundness  of  the  opinion  in  question,  with  his  usual  candor 
acknowledged  his  error.  In  support  of  the  change  which  I 
propose  in  the  passage  which  is  the  occasion  of  this  note,  I 
cite  the  following  passage  from  a  MS.  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury :  — 

Cast  the  beame  out  of  thine  own  eye,  then  thou  maiest  see  a  mothe  in 
another  man's.  Reliquiae  Antiquae,  I.  207. 


292  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

In  the  scene  in  which  Mote  (or  Moth)  first  appears,  he 
himself  makes  a  pun  which  rests  upon  the  very  pronuncia- 
tion of  th  to  which  he  owes  his  ambiguous  name.  Armado 
is  seeking  justification  for  his  passion  for  Jacquenetta  by 
asking  for  examples  of  great  men  who  have  been  in  love. 
Mote  suggests  Samson,  and  adds  that  the  woman  that  he 
loved  was  of  "  sea- water-green  "  complexion.  Armado  then 
says  that  Samson  must  have  "  surely  affected  her  for  her 
wit."  To  which  the  page  replies,  "  It  was  so,  sir  ;  for  she 
had  a  green  wit."  What  does  this  reply  mean  ?  Nothing  to 
us ;  unless  we  remember,  what  every  one  of  Shakespeare's 
audience  knew,  that  in  their  time  withe  was  pronounced  wit. 
Delilah's  "  green  wit "  was  not  only  the  wit  that  Armado 
had  in  mind,  but  the  "  green  withes  "  with  which  she  bound 
Samson  when  she  sought  to  betray  him  to  the  Philistines.1 

The  same  play  has  (Act  IV.  Sc.  3),  according  to  the 
folio,  the  following  lines  :  — 

For  where  is  any  author  in  the  world 
Teaches  such  beauty  as  a  woman's  eye  ? 

Here  Mr.  Collier's  annotated  folio  gave  us  "  Teaches  such 
learning,"  etc.,  which  reading  is  taken  into  the  text  of  my 
edition.  The  reading  of  the  folio  leaves  the  context  without 
meaning,  a  defect  which  is  remedied  by  the  reading  brought 
forward  by  Mr.  Collier.  The  correction  seems  to  me  to  be 
supported  by  the  following  passage  in  Florio's  translation  of 
Montaigne's  "  Essays  "  —  a  book  there  is  good  reason  for  be- 
lieving that  Shakespeare  read,  and  a  passage  from  which  he 
paraphrased  in  "  The  Tempest."  It  is  at  least  probable 
that  he  had  this  one  in  mind  when  writing  "  Love's  La- 
bour 's  Lost." 

The  company  of  faire  and  society  of  honest  women  is  likewise  a  sweet 
commerce  to  me.  Nam  nos  quoque  oculos  eruditos  habemus  ;  for  we  also 
have  learned  eyes. 

In  the  first  scene  of  "  The  Merchant  of  Venice  ''  is  the 
following  passage  in  a  speech  by  Bassanio  :  — 

In  my  school-days,  when  I  had  lost  one  shaft, 
I  shot  his  fellow  of  the  self-same  flight 

i  Judges  xvi.  7,8. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.          293 

The  self-same  way,  with  more  advised  watch, 
To  find  the  other  forth. 

"  To  find  the  other  forth  "  has  been  pronounced  by  an  ac- 
complished critic  of  Shakespeare's  language  "  neither  Eng- 
lish nor  sense."  It  is,  to  be  sure,  somewhat  strange  to  us, 
but  it  is  both  English  and  sense,  although  the  simple  expla- 
nation of  it  has  not  been  given.  Forth  is  used  thus  in 
Frobisher's  account  of  his  voyage,  A.  D.  1578  :  — 

On  the  other  side  the  company  a  shoare  feared  that  the  captayne,  having 
lost  his  shyppe,  came  to  seek  forth  the  fleete  for  his  relief e  in  his  poore 
pinesse.  Hakluyt  Society's  Ed.,  p.  270. 

And  in  "  The  Comedy  of  Errors,"  Act  I.  Sc.  2,  we  have, 
"  Who  failing  there  to  find  his  fellow/or^."  Plainly,  in 
all  these  examples,  forth  is  equivalent  to  out ;  to  seek  forth 
is  to  seek  out,  as  we  now  say  ;  to  find  forth  is  to  find  out. 
The  connection  of  the  ideas  expressed  by  both  the  words  is 
clear.  That  which  goes  forth  goes  out.  The  phrase  is  in- 
teresting as  an  example  of  the  strangeness  and  the  obscurity 
that  may  be  the  consequence  of  the  use  of  a  common  word 
in  a  sense  which,  although  it  is  quite  closely  connected  with 
its  radical  meaning,  is  a  little  removed  from  that  to  which  it 
is  generally  limited. 

The  merry  Gratiano  in  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice  "  illus- 
trates a  great  change  that  has  taken  place  in  the  manners 
and  customs  of  our  daily  life  during  the  last  two  hundred 
years,  when,  assuring  his  patron  that  he  will  assume  the  airs 
of  a  pattern  of  sobriety,  he  says  to  Bassanio,  "  Never  trust 
me  more  if  I  do  not " 

while  grace  is  saying,  hood  mine  eyes 

Thus  with  my  hat,  and  sigh  and  say  Amen. 

Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

Nothing  would  seem  ruder  to  us  than  for  a  party  of  gentle- 
men to  sit  down  to  table  with  their  hats  on.  But  such  was 
the  practice  in  the  best  society  of  Shakespeare's  time  —  the 
hat  being  removed  only  by  the  more  punctilious  while  grace 
was  said,  and  then  resumed.  John  Florio  says,  in  his 
"  Second  Fruites  "  (1591),  "  Let  us  make  a  law  that  no 


294  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

man  put  off  his  hat  or  cap  at  the  table.  .  .  .  This  is  a 
kinde  of  courtesie  and  ceremonie  rather  to  be  avoided  than 
otherwise  at  table."  Hence  we  see  that  the  removal  of  the 
hat  at  table  was  regarded  as  a  mark  of  extreme  fastidious- 
ness, or  perhaps  of  exceeding  deference  to  some  eminent 
person. 

The  following  passage  in  "  The  Winter's  Tale  "  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  much  not  very  fruitful  comment.  Her- 
mione  speaks,  addressing  Leontes  :  — 

I  appeal 

To  your  own  conscience,  sir,  before  Polixenes 
Came  to  your  court,  how  I  was  in  your  grace, 
How  merited  to  be  so  :  since  he  came 
With  what  encounter  so  uncurrent  I 
Have  strain'd,  etc.  etc. 

Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

The  difficulty  is  in  the  word  uncurrent,  for  which  a  sense  in 
accordance  with  the  context  has  not  been  discovered.  It 
was  suggested  in  my  first  edition  that  the  passage  is  corrupt 
in  the  word  uncurrent ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion 
that  we  should  read  "  with  what  encounter  so  occurrent." 
There  is  a  hint  of  such  a  use  of  occurrent  in  the  following 
whimsical  passage  in  "  The  Opticke  Glass  of  Humors  :  "  — 

Another  ridiculous  foole  of  Venice  thought  his  shoulders  and  buttockes 
were  made  of  glasse,  wherefore  he  shunned  all  occurrents,  and  never  durst 
sit  down  to  meat.  Page  139. 

In  the  fourth  act  of  the  same  play  the  clown,  attempting 
to  check  the  chattering  of  Mopsa,  Dorcas,  and  the  other 
shepherdesses,  cries,  according  to  the  folio,  "  Clamour  your 
tongues,  and  not  a  word  more."  Clamour  is  retained  by 
the  Cambridge  editors,  and  by  some  others ;  but  it  cannot  be 
correct.  Charm,  chamber,  chommer,  clammer,  and  chawmer 
have  been  brought  forward  as  emendations,  of  which  the 
first  is  far  the  best.  But  it  substitutes  one  syllable  for  two, 
and  leaves  our  unaccounted  for.  The  word  for  which  clam- 
our is  a  slight  misprint  is  probably  chambre,  which  appears 
twice  in  Udall's  "Apophthegms  of  Erasmus,"  where  the 
context  assures  us  of  its  meaning  :  — 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  295 

For  critics  menaced  and  thretened  him  that  oneless  he  chaumbred  his 
tongue  in  season,  etc.  .  .  .  repair  or  chambre  the  tauntinge  of  his 
tongue.1  Book  I. 

In  "  Richard  II."  is  a  passage  which  has  given  occasion 
for  much  conjectural  emendation.  A  gardener  says  of 

Bolingbroke :  — 

O,  what  pity  is  it 

That  he  had  not  so  trimm'd  and  dress'd  his  land 
As  we  this  garden  !     We,  at  time  of  year, 
Do  wound  the  bark,  the  skin  of  our  fruit  trees, 
Lest  being  over  proud  with  sap,  etc. 

Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  "at  time  of  year,"  in  which  read- 
ing all  the  old  copies,  folios  and  quartos,  concur  ?  Should 
we  not  read  at  time  of  vere,  i.  e.,  ver —  spring,  the  time 
when  trees  are  proud  with  sap  ?  That  emendation  would  be 
supported  by  the  following  passage  in  Skelton's  verses  on 
"Time:"  — 

The  rotys  take  theyr  sap  in  time  of  vere, 
In  time  of  somer  flowers  fresh  and  grene, 

In  time  of  harvest  men  their  come  shere, 

In  time  of  wynter  the  north  wynde  waxeth  kene, 
So  bytterly  by  tinge  the  flowres  be  not  sene. 

Here  we  have  in  time  of  vere,  summer,  harvest,  winter. 
The  inducement  to  take  vere  into  the  text  is  very  great. 
But  compare  the  following  passage  from  Andrew  Borde's 
"  Boke  of  the  Introduction  of  Knowledge  :  "  — 

In  the  forest  of  St.  Leonardos,  in  Southsex,  there  dothe  never  sing  night- 
ingale, although  the  foreste  rounde  aboute  in  time  of  year  is  replenyshed 
with  nightingales. 

But  y  being  an  easy  misprint  of  v,  particularly  in  black- 
letter,  may  not  the  same  error  have  been  committed  in  Borde 
and  in  Shakespeare  ? 

Falstaff  exclaims  (King  Henry  IV.,  Part  L,  Act  IV.  Sc. 
3),  "  Shall  I  not  take  mine  ease  in  mine  inn,  but  I  shall 
have  my  pocket  pick'd,"  and  the  phrase  "  take  mine  ease  in 
mine  inn  "  has  been  regarded  as  an  instance  of  Shakespeare's 

1  And  yet  when  I  came  to  edit  the  "Riverside  "  edition  (1883),  I  shrank 
from  this  reading.  The  word  is  one  which  Shakespeare  would  not  have 
been  likely  to  use. 


296  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

curious  felicity  of  expression,  like  "  discourse  of  reason," 
"  comparisons  are  odious,"  and  others  ;  whereas,  like  them, 
it  is  a  mere  familiar  phrase  of  his  period,  used  by  him  with- 
out thought,  and  as  matter  of  course.  Archbishop  Cran- 
mer,  in  his  "  Confutation  of  Unwritten  Verities,"  published 
A.  D.  1582,  has  this  passage  :  — 

What  should  he  neecle  to  toile  herein  himselfe?  or  why  shoulde  he  not 
like  a  gentleman,  take  his  ease  in  his  inne  ?  Page  74. 

It  has  been  clearly  enough  shown  that  sack  —  which 
some  folk  would  have  it  was  a  mixture,  like  metheglin,  for 
instance  —  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  sherry  wine  ;  but 
the  following  quaint  passage  from  HowelTs  letters,  written 
about  1645,  is  not  only  confirmatory  on  this  point,  but  an  in- 
teresting contribution  to  the  history  of  toping  among  our 
forefathers : — 

For  Sherries  and  Malagas  well  mingled  pass  for  Canaries,  in  most  tav- 
ernes,  more  often  than  Canary  itself.  .  .  .  When  Sacks  and  Canaries  were 
brought  in  first  among  us  they  were  us'd  to  be  drunk  in  Aquavitae  meas- 
ures ;  and  'twas  held  tit  only  for  those  to  drink  of  them  that  carried  their 
legs  in  their  hands,  their  eyes  upon  their  noses,  and  an  almanack  in  their 
bones.  But  now  they  go  down  every  one's  throat,  young  and  old,  like 
milk.  Book  II.  p.  54. 

The  mention  of  Adonis's  gardens  in  "  Henry  VI.,"  Part 
L,  Act  I.  Sc.  6,  gave  Bentley  the  opportunity  of  remarking 
that  there  is  no  authority  for  the  existence  of  any  such  gar- 
dens, in  Greek  or  Latin  writers  ;  the  K^TTOL  'A<Wi'Sos  being 
mere  pots  of  earth  planted  with  a  little  fennel  and  lettuce, 
which  were  borne  by  women  on  the  feast  of  Adonis,  in 
memory  of  the  lettuce-bed  where  Venus  laid  her  lover.  But 
Spenser,  writing  before  Shakespeare,  says  :  — 

But  well  I  wote  by  tryale  that  this  same 
All  other  pleasant  places  doth  exccll, 
And  called  is  by  her  lost  lover's  name, 
The  Garden  of  Adonis,  faire  renown'd  by  fame. 

Dail}T  they  grow,  and  daily  forth  are  sent 
Into  the  world. 

Faerie  Queene,  Book  III.,  Canto  6,  st.  29,  36. 

And  the  scholar-poet,  Milton,  calls  Eden   (Paradise   Lost, 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS. 


297 


IX.  440)  "  Spot  more  delicious  than  those  gardens  feigned, 
or  of  revived  Adonis,"  etc. 

But,  after  all,  Shakespeare,  or  the  author  of  the  First 
Part  of  "  King  Henry  VI.,"  whoever  he  was,  whether  from 
knowledge  or  by  chance,  was  more  correct,  or  rather  less 
incorrect,  than  Spenser  or  Milton.  He  does  not  speak  of 
the  gardens  of  Adonis  as  a  place,  or  as  a  spot :  he  only 
compares  speedily  redeemed  promises  to  "  Adonis's  gardens, 
that  one  day  bloomed  and  fruitful  were  the  next."  So 
Plato  says  in  his  "  Pluedrus  "  :  — 

Now  do  you  think  that  a  sensible  husbandman  would  take  the  seed  which 
he  valued,  and,  wishing  to  produce  a  harvest,  would  seriously,  after  the 
summer  had  begun,  scatter  it  in  the  gardens  of  Adonis  for  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  it  spring  up  and  look  green  in  a  week  ? 

In  the  Second  Part  of  "  King  Henry  VI.,"  Act  I.  Sc.  3, 
one  of  several  petitioners  awaiting  the  entrance  of  the  Duke 
of  Suffolk  says  :  — 

My  masters,  let 's  stand  close :  my  Lord  Protector  will  come  this  way  by 
and  by,  and  then  we  may  deliver  our  supplications  in  the  quill. 

What  is  meant  by  "  in  the  quill  ?  "  Mr.  Singer  and  Mr. 
Dyce  suggested  that  we  should  read  "  in  the  quoil,"  coil, 
confusion.  At  first  I  regarded  "  in  the  quill "  as  equivalent 
to  "in  manuscript,"  as  "in  type"  would  be  to  "in  print." 
The  Collier  folio  gave  "in  sequel,"  which  Mr.  Collier 
adopted.  But  a  correspondent  of  the  London  "  Athenaeum  " 
(February  27,  1864)  cited  "Ainsworth's  Dictionary,"  ed. 
1773,  as  authority  for  accepting  "  in  the  quill "  as  a  phrase 
equivalent  to  ex  compacto  agere,  to  do  together.  In  support 
of  this  interpretation  of  the  passage  I  offer  the  following 
lines  of  a  Roxburghe  Ballad,  my  particular  reference  to 
which  has  been  mislaid. 

Thus  those  females  were  all  in  a  quill 
And  following  on  in  their  pastime  still. 

One  of  the  strangest  and,  at  first  sight,  most  puzzling  uses 
of  a  very  common  word  by  Shakespeare  occurs  in  the  last 
line  of  the  following  passage  of  "  King  Henry  VIII.,"  Act 
I.  Sc.  1,  in  which  Buckingham  is  raving  at  Wolsey  for  the 
manner  in  which  he  made  up  the  list  of  those  who  were  to 


298  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPKARE. 

accompany  Henry  to  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  The 
passage,  like  many  in  this  play,  bears  the  marks  of  haste 
and  carelessness. 

He  makes  up  the  file 
Of  all  the  gentry ;  for  the  most  part  such 
To  whom  as  great  a  charge  as  little  honour 
He  meant  to  lay  upon  :  and  his  own  letter, 
The  honourable  board  of  council  out, 
Must  fetch  him  in  he  papers. 

It  has  been  proposed  to  read  "  the  papers,"  " he  paupers" 
and  "he  prefers"  But  papers  has  been  accepted  by  some 
editors  as  a  verb,  the  consequent  meaning  of  the  line  being 
—  must  fetch  him  in  whom  he,  Wolsey,  puts  upon  paper. 
It  has  been  objected  that  such  a  use  of  paper  is  unprece- 
dented and  without  support  of  any  example.  This  is  of  small 
consequence  ;  Shakespeare  did  not  wait  upon  precedent :  but 
the  following  line  from  "  Albion's  England "  supplies  the 
needless  authority,  and  supports  the  received  text  and  this 
interpretation  of  it :  — 

Set  is  the  soveraigne  sunne,  did  shine  when  papered  last  our  penne. 
Book  XIV.,  chap.  80,  ed.  1606. 

Shakespeare's  wisest  play,  and  that  also  in  which  he 
shows  most  acquaintance  with  classical  literature,  is  "  Troi- 
lus  and  Cressida."  In  the  best  scene  of  this  play,  the  third 
of  the  third  act,  is  the  following  speech :  — 

This  is  not  strange,  Ulysses ; 
The  beauty  that  is  borne  here  in  the  face 
The  bearer  knows  not,  but  commends  itself 
To  others'  eyes :  nor  doth  the  eye  itself, 
That  most  pure  spirit  of  sense,  behold  itself, 
Not  going  from  itself ;  but  eye  to  eye  oppos'd 
Salutes  each  other  with  each  other's  form. 
For  speculation  turns  not  to  itself, 
Till  it  hath  travell'd  and  is  mirrored  there 
Where  it  may  see  itself.     This  is  not  strange  at  all. 

The  old  copies  in  the  last  line  but  one  have  "  is  married 
there."  The  reading  "  is  mirrored  there  "  was  found  on 
the  margins  of  Mr.  Collier's  second  folio  and  of  Mr.  Singer's, 
and  was  adopted  in  my  first  edition.  This  was  done  upon 
the  merits  of  the  emendation  alone.  It  seems  to  be  re- 


GLOSSARIES   AND    LEXICONS. 


299 


quired.  But  it  is  confirmed,  made  imperative  it  would  seem, 
by  the  following  passage  in  Plato's  "  First  Alcibiades," 
which,  however,  I  bring  forward  here  not  chiefly  for  that 
purpose,  but  to  direct  attention  to  a  similarity  of  thought 
and  expression  between  it  and  Achilles's  speech,  which  seems 
quite  inexplicable,  except  on  the  supposition  that  Shake- 
speare was  acquainted  with  what  Plato  wrote. 

We  may  take  the  analogy  of  the  eye.  The  eye  sees  not  itself,  but  from 
some  other  thing ;  for  instance,  a  mirror.  But  the  eye  can  see  itself  also 
by  reflection  in  another  eye ;  not  by  looking  at  any  other  part  of  a  man,  but 
at  the  eye  only. 

Whewell,  in  his  note  on  this  passage,  commends  its 
beauty,  but  makes  no  allusion  whatever  to  the  passage  in 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  in  which  the  self-same  thought  is  ex- 
pressed. It  occurs  also  in  "  Julius  Caesar,"  Act  I.  Sc.  2  :  — 

No,  Cassius ;  for  the  eye  sees  not  itself 
But  by  reflection  —  by  some  other  thing. 

Hamlet's  first  soliloquy  opens  thus  :  — 

O,  that  this  too  too  solid  flesh  would  melt, 
Thaw  and  resolve  itself  into  a  dew  ! 
Or  that  the  Everlasting  had  not  fix'd 
His  canon  'gainst  self-slaughter  ! 

And  in  "  Cymbeline,"  Act  III.  Sc.  4,  Imogen  says :  — 

Against  self-slaughter 
There  is  a  prohibition  so  divine 
That  cravens  my  weak  hand. 

Here  are  two  very  particular  assertions  of  the  existence 
of  a  specific  prohibition  of  suicide  by  Divine  law.  Shake- 
speare may  have  known  the  Bible,  as  he  knew  all  other 
things  in  his  day  knowable,  so  much  better  than  I  do,  that 
I  may  not  without  presumption  question  what  he  says  with 
regard  to  it.  But  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  any 
such  specific  prohibition.  Perhaps  some  of  my  readers  have 
been,  or  may  be,  more  successful. 

In  the  play  last  mentioned,  Guiderius  and  Arviragus  be- 
ing about  to  bury  the  sleeping  Imogen,  whom  they  take  for 
dead,  Arviragus  says  (Act  IV.  Sc.  2), — 

Nay,  Cadwal,  we  must  lay  his  head  to  th'  East, 
My  father  hath  a  reason  for  't. 


300  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

This  reason  has  not  been  shown,  and  in  my  first  edition 
the  lack  of  explanation  was  merely  pointed  out  without  any 
attempt  to  supply  it.  But  the  reason  was  that  the  British 
people,  whom  our  Anglo-Saxon  and  pagan  forefathers  sup- 
planted, were  Christians  ;  and  antiquarians  now  determine 
the  nationality  of  ancient  sepulchral  remains  in  England  by 
the  direction  of  the  graves  in  which  they  are  found.  If  the 
graves  are  oriented,  the  remains  are  those  of  ancient  Brit- 
ons ;  if  not,  of  Anglo-Saxons  or  Danes.  But  how  did  this 
man,  Shakespeare,  know  all  these  things  ? 

I  have  heretofore  mentioned  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon,  by 
the  erudite  Dr.  Alexander  Schmidt,  of  Koenigsberg.  How 
ever  learned  Dr.  Schmidt  may  be  (and  I  believe  that  he  is 
a  scholar  of  most  respectable  attainments),  however  able 
(and  I  would  willingly  assume  that  his  ability  is  equal  to  his 
scholarship),  however  painstaking  (and  his  Lexicon  shows 
him  to  be  most  commendable  in  this  respect),  I  cannot  but 
regard  that  work  as  of  little  value  to  the  student  of  Shake- 
speare ;  and  not  only  so,  but  as  a  conspicuous  example  of  a 
kind  of  effort  the  fruits  of  which  the  world  might  well  be 
spared.  What  it  is  and  what  is  its  value  may  be  very  easily 
seen. 

Shakespeare  used,  it  is  said,  about  fifteen  thousand  words.1 
All  these  words  (except  the  articles,  prepositions,  and  con- 
junctions) may  be  found  in  Mrs.  Cowden  Clarke's  Concor- 
dance of  the  Plays,  and"  in  the  Concordance  of  the  Poems, 
by  the  late  Mrs.  Horace  Howard  Furness,  —  the  latter 
work  having  the  great  value  of  comprising  every  one  of  the 
words  used,  articles  and  what  not.  In  both  these  works  the 
words  appear  with  brief  context,  and  arranged  alphabeti- 
cally under  play,  act,  and  scene,  or  poem.  Any  word  used 
by  Shakespeare  may  thus  be  seen  at  once  by  the  student, 
and  its  sense  in  one  passage  compared  with  its  sense  in  all 
others. 

Now  of  Shakespeare's  fifteen  thousand  words  there  are 
not  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  of  which  the  reader  of 
1  This  estimate  is  not  mine.  It  seems  to  me  excessive. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  301 

general  information  and  intelligence  needs  explanation  be- 
cause of  their  obsoleteness,  and  little  more  than  one  hundred 
because  of  their  use  in  a  sense  peculiar  to  Shakespeare. 
If  any  one  of  my  readers  is  surprised  at  this  assertion,  let 
him  consider  the  question  briefly,  and  I  think  that  he  will 
see  that,  were  it  otherwise,  Shakespeare  could  not  be  read 
in  our  day  with  constantly  increasing  delight  by  millions, 
young  and  old,  educated,  half  educated,  nay,  truly  unedu- 
cated. That  the  glossaries  appended  to  Shakespeare's 
works  contain  a  larger  number  of  words  than  this  —  some 
twelve  or  fifteen  hundred,  usually  —  is  not  at  all  to  the  pur- 
pose. Again,  a  moment's  reflection  will  make  it  clear  to 
any  reasonable  person  that  if  one  tenth  of  Shakespeare's 
words  were  obsolete  or  esoteric  his  plays  would  be  unreada- 
ble, except  by  scholars. 

The  multiplicity  of  the  lists  in  the  glossaries  is  easily  ex- 
plained. We  have  seen  how  it  is  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Dyce's. 
Opening  that  of  the  "  Globe  "  edition  casually,  I  find  in  the 
first  of  its  brief  columns  that  meets  my  eye  the  following 
words  given  and  explained :  gaudy,  brilliantly  festive,  "  Let 's 
have  another  gaudy  night ; "  gaze,  object  looked  at  with 
curious  wonder,  "  live  to  be  the  show  and  gaze  o'  th'  time  ;  " 
gear,  matter  of  business ;  general,  common  ;  generations, 
children ;  gentility,  good  manners ;  german,  akin  (as  in 
cousin-german)  ;  gifts,  talents ;  gilt,  gold,  money,  bribes, 
"  have  for  the  gilt  of  France  confirm'd  conspiracy :  "  glose, 
to  comment ;  glut,  to  swallow ;  government,  self-restraint ; 
gracious,  full  of  grace ;  grained,  engrained  ;  grange,  a 
farmhouse  ;  gratillity,  a  Fool's  ludicrous  blunder  for  gra- 
tuity ;  gratulate,  to  congratulate  ;  grave,  to  bury,  put  in  a 
grave  ;  green,  immature,  fresh ;  greenly,  foolishly  ;  grossly, 
palpably  ;  and  gentle  is  given  three  times  ;  gird  twice,  and 
gleek  twice,  with  essentially  the  same  meaning.  These 
words  fill  half  the  column  in  which  they  appear. 

Now  I  confess  at  once  that  I  have  never  written  nor  edited 
for  those  who  do  not  see  that  such  glosses  are  more  than 
superfluous,  —  absurd.  A  reader  who  needs  explanation  of 


302  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

such  words  as  those  cited  above  has  no  business  with  a 
Shakespeare,  —  no  business  with  any  book  other  than  a 
primer  and  a  popular  dictionary.  Who  needs  the  explana- 
tion of  such  words  as  those  could  not  read  a  newspaper  of 
higher  class  than  a  Police  Gazette  ;  certainly  not  a  Penny 
Dreadful.  Nor  do  such  people  read  Shakespeare,  or  even 
any  writer  of  the  day  who  rises  in  thought  or  phrase  above 
the  level  of  the  poet's  corner  or  the  humorous  column.  One 
reason  of  this  glossarial  superfluity  would  seem  to  be  that 
tendency  which  I  have  elsewhere  remarked  upon,  to  obtrude 
explanation  of  word  and  phrase  when  it  is  the  thought  that 
eludes  apprehension,  and  the  founding  of  glossaries  upon 
such  notes  of  explanation;  another,  that  disposition,  also 
heretofore  mentioned,  to  magnify  the  Shakespearean  office, 
to  set  it  off  as  an  ism,  to  make  the  reading  of  Shakespeare 
a  cult,  and  the  editing  him  a  mystery. 

Our  brief  chance  examination  of  the  "  Globe  "  glossary 
showed  us  that  not  half  the  words  included  in  it  needed 
glosses  for  any  person  who  could  read  an  English  newspaper 
of  average  grade.  But  even  this  conclusion  overstates  the 
truth.  Not  six  hundred  of  Shakespeare's  fifteen  thousand 
words  need  glosses,  —  not  more,  or  much  more,  than  two  or 
three  hundred,  as  I  have  said  before.  Now  what  the  Shake- 
speare Lexicon  does  is  to  give  in  two  immense  volumes,  — 
a  bulk  four  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  "  Globe  "  Shake- 
speare, —  all  Shakespeare's  words  arranged  alphabetically, 
with  their  various  definitions  in  the  order  of  the  plays.  I 
open  casually  the  volume  on  which  my  hand  first  falls,  and 
find  the  page  before  me  entirely  filled  with  citations  and 
definitions  of  the  following  words :  slave,  slavelike,  slaver, 
slavery,  slavish,  slay,  slayer,  sleave-silk,  sledded,  sleek, 
sleek-headed,  sleekly,  sleep,  not  one  of  which,  it  will  be  seen, 
is  obsolete  or  obsolescent,  not  one  of  which  could  not  be 
found  in  any  popular  manual-dictionary,  not  one  of  which 
would  trouble  a  common-school  boy  of  average  intelligence. 

As  to  the  meaning  of  Shakespeare's  words  which  every 
ordinarily  intelligent  reader  understands,  and  without  such 


GLOSSARIES   AND  LEXICONS.  303 

an  understanding  of  which  Shakespeare's  writings,  and  not 
only  they  but  the  general  literature  of  the  day,  would  be  in- 
comprehensible, —  as  to  these,  no  one  needs  the  ministra- 
tions of  any  special  Shakespeare  lexicographer,  nor  those  of 
any  lexicographer.  Where  help  is  needed  is  in  words  and 
phrases  of  the  opposite  class.  If  Dr.  Schmidt's  scholarship 
and  his  mastery  of  the  English  language  had  enabled  him 
to  throw  new  light  upon  these,  or  upon  any  considerable  pro- 
portion of  them,  a  brief  glossological  excursus  to  that  effect 
by  him  would  have  been  welcome ;  and  I  cannot  but  believe 
that  it  would  have  been  performed  by  him  in  a  thorough 
and  scholarly  manner.  But  here  is  exactly  where  he  fails. 
Where  definition  and  comparison  of  words  and  phrases  is 
needless,  more  than  superfluous,  he  is  in  most  cases  tri- 
umphantly clear  and  correct ;  it  is  chiefly  in  the  case  of 
obsoleteness  or  obscurity  that  he  fails  to  benefit  the  world 
by  what  has  been  called  his  "  combination  of  accuracy  and 
acuteness." 

That,  for  example,  slave  means  "  a  person  who  is  abso- 
lutely subject  to  the  will  of  another  ;  "  slay,  "  to  kill,  to  put 
to  death ;  "  sleek-headed,  "having  the  hair  well  combed  ;  " 
sleep,  "  rest  taken  by  a  suspension  of  the  voluntary  exercise 
of  the  bodily  and  mental  powers,"  and  so  forth,  we  hardly 
need  the  aid  of  scholarship  like  Dr.  Schmidt's  to  know. 
Indeed,  every  reader  of  English  blood  or  breeding  is  likely 
to  know  it  better  than  Dr.  Schmidt  does.  But  when  he 
comes  to  the  words  and  phrases  about  which  English  folk 
may  doubt,  although  with  some  inkling  of  their  meaning, 
he  is  generally  —  no,  I  cannot  say  generally,  for  I  have  yet 
(that  is,  as  I  write  these  lines)  cut  but  few  leaves  of  his 
Lexicon,  but  generally  on  such  an  examination  —  in  a  sad 
muddle  of  confusion  and  ignorance.  Would  it  not  be  some- 
what unreasonable  to  expect  otherwise  ? 

On  the  page  now  accidentally  before  me,  in  the  passage 
in  the  first  act  of  "  Hamlet,"  — 

Such  was  the  very  armour  he  had  on 
When  he  th'  ambitious  Norway  combated: 


304  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

So  frown'd  he  once,  when,  in  an  angry  parle 
He  smote  the  sledded  Polacks  on  the  ice, 

because  "  Polacks  "  happens  to  be  spelled  phonetically  in 
the  folio  Pollax  (as  it  is  in  the  passage  of  the  Address 
to  the  Reader  in  Lodge's  "  Euphues'  Golden  Legacie," 
u  I  '11  down  into  the  hold  and  fetch  out  a  rustic  pollax," 
etc.),  he  will  have  it  that  we  should  read  pole-axe:  that 
sledded  means  having  a  sledge  or  heavy  hammer  on  it ; 
and  that  "  smote  the  sledded  pole-axe  on  the  ice "  means 
that  the  elder  Hamlet  in  his  anger  smote  the  ice  with  his 
pole-axe.  There  could  not  be  better  evidence  of  Dr. 
Schmidt's  superfluity  as  a  Shakespearean  lexicographer 
than  this  amazing,  and  I  must  be  pardoned  for  saying  ri- 
diculous, explanation.  The  absurdity  of  it  is  felt  by  every 
English-minded  reader  more  easily  than  it  is  explained.  It 
is  so  laughably  inconsistent  with  the  tone  of  this  scene,  aw- 
ful with  the  wraith  of  the  majesty  of  buried  Denmark,  to 
picture  the  royal  Dane  smiting  the  ice  with  his  pole-axe, 
like  a  testy  old  heavy  father  in  a  comedy  !  But  on  turning 
to  Furness's  variorum  edition  of  this  play,  I  discover,  from 
the  first  sentence  of  his  array  of  notes  on  this  passage,  that 
"  German  commentators  have  found  more  difficulty  in  this 
phrase  than  English."  I  should  think  so.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising. Dr.  Furness,  after  gathering  (as  according  to  his 
vast  plan  he  must  needs  gather)  a  great  deal  of  such  lumber 
together  in  a  compressed  or  abbreviated  form,  at  last  says, 
in  regard  to  the  exegesis  of  one  of  these  learned  German 
scholars,  and  one  who  does  not  insist  upon  pole-axe,  "  This 
comment  paralyzes  my  power  to  paraphrase,"  and  gives  it 
in  full  thus  :  — - 

I  always  regarded  "  sleaded,"  or,  as  the  modern  editors  read,  "  sledded," 
as  nonsense.  What  a  ridiculous  position  it  must  have  been  to  see  a  king 
in  full  armour  smiting  down  a  sledded  man ;  that  is,  a  man  sitting  in  a 
sledge  !  It  would  rather  not  have  been  a  king-like  action.  And  it  was  of 
course  not  a  remarkable,  not  a  memorable  fact  that  in  the  cold  Scandina. 
vian  country  in  winter  time  people  were  found  sitting  in  a  sledge  ;  nobody 
would  have  wondered  at  it, — perhaps  more  at  the  contrary.  When  the 
king  frowned  in  an  angry  parle,  he  must  have  been  provoked  to  it  by  an 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  305 

irritating  behavior  of  the  adversary,  and  Horatio,  remembering  the  fact, 
will  also  bear  in  mind  the  cause  of  it ;  and  so  I  suppose  he  used  an  epithet 
which  points  out  the  provoking  manner  of  the  Polack,  and,  following 
as  much  as  possible  the  form  "sleaded,"  I  should  like  to  propose  the 
word  sturdy,  or,  as  it  would  have  beeu  written  in  Shakespeare's  time, 
sturdie. 

And  the  man  who  wrote  that  undertakes  to  explain  Shake- 
speare, and  even  to  write  verbal  criticism  on  his  language  ; 
nay,  verily,  to  propose  emendations  of  his  text !  Do  not 
suppose  that  he  is  ignorant,  that  he  is  even  a  half-scholar,  or 
that  he  is  dull.  On  the  contrary,  he,  like  Dr.  Schmidt,  is  a 
scholar  and  a  man  of  ability.  It  is  simply  that  he  does  not 
understand  the  English  idiom  and  the  English  way  of  think- 
ing. If  our  good  German  friends  would  but  confine  them- 
selves to  admiring  Shakespeare,  although  in  a  somewhat 
simpler  and  less  profound  manner  than  is  their  wont,  and 
would  confine  their  learned  and  elaborate,  and  generally 
very  useful  endeavors  in  verbal  and  philosophical  exegesis 
to  the  second  part  of  "  Faust "  and  the  like  it  would,  I  ven- 
ture to  think,  tend  greatly  to  edification.1 

1  Some  weeks  after  the  plea  above  was  first  published  (  The  Atlantic 
Monthly,  May,  1884),  I  met  with  the  following  very  pertinent  remarks 
in  an  article  in  the  Evening  Post  on  Kolbing's  Knylische  Studien:  — 

"  Unfortunately,  if  the  work  of  some  of  the  contributors  should  fall  into 
the  hands  of  a  classical  scholar,  he  would  be  in  great  danger  of  renouncing 
his  own  investigations,  appalled  by  the  results  of  induction  and  analogy  as 
applied  to  modern  tongues,  while  the  non-philological  mind  would  simply 
set  down  as  arrant  nonsense  the  laborious  process  of  getting  at  the  wrong 
sense  of  an  English  phrase,  which  could  be  settled  beyond  controversy  by 
a  postal  card  addressed  to  any  one  born  to  the  English  tongue.  .  .  . 

As  a  rule,  the  German  prefers  to  hammer  out  the  sense  of  any  unknown 
sentence  in  his  own  way,  by  laborious  mechanical  processes,  or  to  absorb 
the  meaning  of  a  phrase  by  plunging  his  nature  into  the  psychological  en- 
vironment of  the  English  tongue.  One  must  not  be  deceived  by  the  mod- 
esty with  which  the  views  are  sometimes  put  forth.  Attack  the  result,  and 
you  will  see  how  ignorant  you  are  of  your  native  language. 

In  this  last  number  of  Kcilbing's  Studien  one  of  the  most  interesting 
articles  —  they  are  all  interesting  —  is  a  series  of  observations  on  the  lan- 
guage of  Carlyle.  .  .  .  The  compounds,  as  one  of  the  most  noticeable 
features  of  Carlyle's  style,  are  naturally  attacked  first.  They  are  alpha- 
betically arranged,  without  a  hint  of  difference.  Some  of  the  combina- 
tions have,  to  be  sure,  found  their  way  into  the  dictionary,  but  as  "there 


306  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

My  first  examination  of  this  Lexicon  was  very  slight ; 
but  I  find  among  many  words  checked  on  its  margins  at 
that  examination  these  :  — 

Apply  defined  as  "  to  make  use  of."  Now  a  thing  ap- 
plied, whether  it  is  craft,  or  a  poultice,  or  medicine,  is  in- 

is  a  possibility  that  they  found  their  way  out  of  Carl  vie' s  writings," 
the  conscientious  collector  makes  no  distinction,  and  we  find  "free-will," 
"  harvest -home,"  "  heavy  -wet"  ("probably  a  vulgarism,"  he  adds), 
"high-flying,"  "sun  -down,"  "heavy-  laden,"  "hide-bound,"  "sky- 
high,"  in  company  with  "  world-whirlpool,"  "  upholsterer-mummery," 
and  "phantasm-aristocracy."  "Bob-major"  and  "bob-minor"  are  set 
down  as  slang ;  "  soft-sawder  "  ("  Lamartine,  with  nothing  in  him  but  me- 
lodious wind  and  soft-sawder  ")  is  a  hopeless  puzzle. 

But  if  the  article  on  Carlyle  errs  chiefly  from  lack  of  perspective,  and 
really  serves  to  bring  to  our  consciousness  the  mechanical  effects  of  Carlyle's 
style,  the  article  on  Tom  Brown's  School-days  furnishes  abundant  illus- 
tration of  the  enormous  difficulty  of  mastering  the  familiar  life  of  a  lan- 
guage from  the  outside  ;  and,  by  the  way,  a  curious  feeling  comes  over  one 
on  reading  these  grave  discussions  as  to  the  proper  rendering  of  all  Tom 
Brown's  schoolboy  slang  —  a  feeling  of  shame  at  finding  the  English  lan- 
guage caught,  as  it  were,  in  its  shirtsleeves  by  an  unlicensed  foreigner  —  a 
feeling  that  slang  ought  to  be  kept  wholly  for  home  consumption,  and  not 
submitted  to  chemical  analysis  on  foreign  soil.  It  appears  that  some  five 
years  since  one  Doctor  Pfeffer  published  an  abridged  edition  of  Tom 
Brown's  School-days  with  explanatory  notes  for  the  benefit  of  German 
students  of  English,  and  now,  at  a  somewhat  later  day,  Otto  Kares,  in  an 
unusually  polite  manner,  takes  Doctor  Pfeffer  to  task  for  some  of  his  ex- 
planations, and  well  he  may.  Doctor  Pfeffer  fancies  that  "  at  a  day's  no- 
tice "  means  "  in  the  course,  of  a  day;  "  that  "slap  up"  (the  classical  pas- 
sage, "they  sent  him  slap  up  to  the  ceiling  ")  means  "first-rate;"  that 
"the  winter's  wear"  of  a  road  means  "s.now  and  ice;"  that  "sets  in  the 
school"  has  some  vague  reference  to  things  in  a  school.  The  critic  him- 
self, however,  often  opens  himself  wide  to  criticism,  and  his  supplemen- 
tary remark  to  Doctor  Pfeffer's  note  on  "to  knock  me  out  of  time  "  is  de- 
licious. This  phrase  Doctor  Pfeffer  explains  as  a  jocose  expression  for 
"killing,"  and  Doctor  Pfeffer's  critic  cites  as  a  parallel  the  "  very  common 
phrase"  "to  knock  one  into  next  week."  Evidently,  to  both  of  those 
great  scholars,  "to  knock  out  of  time"  is  "  to  knock  one  into  eternity." 
One  of  them  thinks  that  "  to  go  the  length  of  "  has  reference  to  a  long  and 
tedious  action ;  the  other  stoutly  maintains  that  it  involves  slow  and  cir- 
cumstantial action,  and  he  refers  to  the  "  well  known  passage  "  of  the  Christ- 
mas Carol  —  a  passage  not  present  to  the  mind  of  the  reviewer —  '  He  went 
the  whole  length  of  the  expression.'  " 

Wherefore,  after  this  ludicrous  exposition  of  "English  as  She  is  Spoke," 
again  we  English-blooded,  English-tongued  folk  must  utter  our  friendly 
counsel  to  these  German  scholars,  and  express  the  hope  that  they  will  con- 
fine themselves  to  the  German  language  and  literature,  in  which  they  are 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  307 

deed  used  ;  but  apply  does  not  therefore  mean  "  to  make  use 
of."  To  apply  is  to  set  one  thing  against  or  to  another ;  as 
when  a  plaster  is  applied,  or  a  student  applies  himself,  or  a 
man  applies  his  memory.  The  Lexicon  very  misleadingly 
confuses  two  distinct  although  related  thoughts. 

Contrive,  in  "  Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  Act  I.  Sc.  2,  "  please 
ye  we  may  contrive  this  afternoon  and  quaff  carouses," 
is  defined  as  either  "  to  spend,"  or  u  to  pass  away,"  or  "  to 
lay  schemes  ;  "  which  will  seem  strange  to  any  English- 
woman who  is  in  the  habit  of  saying,  "  How  shall  we  con- 
trive to  pass  the  time  ?  "  Here  contrive  signifies,  merely, 
"  manage." 

Buckle,  in  passages  like  "  in  single  combat  thou  shalt 
buckle  with  me,"  is  defined  "  to  join  in  close  fight ;  "  and 
this  sense  is  said  to  be  "  probably  derived  from  the  phrase 
to  turn  the  buckle  "  !  Here  is  a  mistake  of  the  same  sort 
as  that  about  apply.  Buckle  may  well  be  applied,  and  some- 
times is  applied,  to  joining  in  fight,  but  it  does  not  mean 
that,  nor  anything  like  it.  We  buckle  to  our  work ;  a 
studious  boy  buckles  to  his  lessons ;  and  in  an  old  song  a 
hesitating  girl  says  she  "  can't  buckle  to,"  meaning  she  can't 
bring  herself  to  be  married.  Buclile  means,  merely,  "  bend," 
and  is,  and  was  so  used,  simply  and  baldly ;  as,  for  ex- 
ample :  — 

And  like  a  bow  buckled  and  bent  together 
By  some  more  strong  in  mischiefs  than  myself. 

Ford  &  Dekker,  The  Witch  of  Edmonton,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

This  meaning  appears  in  the  Latin  bucca  =  a  cheek,  buccula 
=  the  curve  of  a  helmet  or  the  boss  of  a  shield,  the  French 
boucle  =  a  curl,  and  our  buckle,  an  implement  to  hold  a 
thong.  We  bend  (buckle)  to  our  work;  a  boy  bends 
(buckles)  to  his  task ;  a  soldier  buckles  (that  is,  bends,  gives 

at  home,  to  the  classical  tongues,  in  which  we  are  all  equally  abroad,  and 
to  comparative  philology,  in  which  they  are  the  world's  masters,  and  chiefly 
of  all  writers  let  Shakespeare  alone,  whether  in  the  way  of  verbal  criti- 
cism, or  textual  exegesis,  or  philosophical  and  aesthetic  comment.  Upon 
that  subject  they  will  most  profit,  if  not  most  distinguish  themselves,  by 
sitting  as  learners. 


308  STUDIES  IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

himself  body  and  soul)  to  combat.  And  see  this  example 
of  this  common  usage  in  a  popular  novel  of  the  day :  "Now 
will  you  just  buckle-to,  and  give  Sugden  a  hand  to  cut  down 
the  infernal  rubbish  [copy  for  a  newspaper]  he  's  been 
pitchforking  upstairs  all  night."  (My  Ducats  and  My 
Daughter,  chap.  14.)  The  Lexicon,  denning  that  which 
to  an  intelligent  English  reader  needs  no  definition,  mis- 
leads readers  who  are  not  English  and  not  intelligent. 

Set  cock-a-hoop  certainly  does  not  mean  u  pick  a  quar- 
rel ;  "  so  clearly  does  every  English  reader  see  this,  although 
he  may  not  know  the  origin  of  the  phrase,  that  further  words 
about  it  would  be  wasted.  I  venture  to  suggest,  however, 
as  to  this  phrase,  of  which  no  explanation  has  yet  been 
accepted,  that  the  last  word  may  have  originally  been 
whoop,  and  that  cock-a-whoop,  a  cock  constantly  crowing, 
was  applied  to  a  loud,  boastful,  forward  fellow.  This  ex- 
planation at  least  fits  all  the  uses  of  the  phrase  that  I  can  re- 
member. 

And  how  it  astonishes  us  English-tongued  folk  to  be  told 
by  a  distinguished  scholar  that  lapsed  means  "  surprised, 
taken  in  the  act ; "  and  that  when  Hamlet  says  to  his 
father's  ghost  that  he  is  "  lapsed  in  time  and  passion  "  he 
means,  "  I  am  surprised  by  you  in  a  time  and  passion  fit 
for,"  etc. !  Lapsed  means  "  lost  in,  given  up  to,  abandoned 
to  ;  "  and  Hamlet  says  that  he  was  feebly  given  up  to  pro- 
crastination and  moody  feeling.  The  notion  that  "  lapsed  " 
has  any  reference  to  the  action  or  to  the  presence  of  the 
fancied  ghost  is  surely  not  one  of  the  least  extraordinary 
pieces  of  Shakespearean  exegesis  that  exists  in  that  extra- 
ordinary literature. 

And  so  when  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon  tells  us  that  in 
Touchstone's  "  Well  said  ;  that  was  laid  on  with  a  trowel," 
we  have  "  a  proverbial  phrase,  probably  meaning  without 
ceremony,"  how  we  are  tempted  into  exclamation  and 
laughter,  —  we  who,  not  being  scholars,  have  always  under- 
stood it  as  meaning,  simply,  "  that  was  laid  on  thick,  as  a 
bricklayer  lays  on  mortar  "  ! 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  309 

Nor  has  pitched,  in  "  a  pitched  battle,"  anything  to  do  with 
"  the  custom  of  planting  sharp  stakes  in  the  ground  against 
hostile  horse."  Pitch  (of  unknown  etymology)  is  merely 
"  to  place  firmly  and  suddenly."  A  man  pitches  upon  a 
site  for  his  house ;  a  clergyman  pitches  upon  a  text  for  his 
sermon ;  a  singer  pitches  upon  a  note ;  we  pitch  upon  any- 
thing that  we  choose  quickly  and  decidedly.  So  a  woman 
may  pitch  upon  a  husband,  as  in  the  following  passage  of 
Motteux's  translation  of  "  Don  Quixote  :  "  — 

"  Therefore  he  took  care  to  let  her  know  of  all  those  that  would  have 
taken  her  to  wife,  both  what  they  were,  and  what  they  had ;  and  he  was  at 
her  to  have  her  pitch  upon  one  of  them  for  a  husband." 

Vol.  i.  p.  121,  ed.  Lockhart,  1822. 

So  pitch  was  (and  is)  used  to  express  the  spreading  or 
casting  of  nets  (toils),  as  by  Marlowe :  — 

Huntsmen,  why  pitch  you  not  your  toils  apace  ? 

Dido,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Pitch  thus  used  is  idiomatic,  as  strike  is  in  the  phrases 
"  they  struck  [took  down]  their  tents,"  "  they  struck  [hauled 
down]  their  flag."  Tents  were  and  are  pitched;  and  to 
pitch  a  battle  was  to  choose  the  ground  for  it  and  to  array 
the  troops.  The  old  preterite  was  pight,  which  is  used  by 
Shakespeare :  — 

When  I  dissuaded  him  from  his  intent, 

And  found  him piqht  to  do  it,  with  curst  speech 

I  threaten' d  to  discover  him. 

Lear,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

Here  pight  means  merely  fixed,  set,  as  it  does  in  this  line  of 
Spenser's :  — 

But  in  the  same  a  little  grate  was  pight. 

Faerie  Queene,  I.  viii.  37. 

And  in  Mandeville  "  a  spere  that  is  pight  into  the  erthe  " 
means  merely  a  spear  that  is  set  into  the  earth.  "  Straight- 
pight  Minerva,"  in  "  Cymbeline,"  Act  V.  Sc.  5,  means,  not 
Minerva  fastened  or  stuck  into  the  ground  or  elsewhere, 
but  Minerva  well  set  up  and  straight  and  bold  in  carriage. 


310  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Pitch  and  pight  used  in  regard  to  tents  or  spears  or  stakes 
do  not  mean  more  or  other  than  when  used  in  regard  to  any- 
thing else,  a  site,  a  text,  a  note,  a  husband,  or  what  not. 

Nor  does  sheep-biter  mean  "  a  morose,  surly,  malicious 
fellow,"  or  anything  like  that.  If  Dr.  Schmidt  had  said  it 
meant  a  thief,  he  would  have  had  the  support  of  good  "  au- 
thority "  (whatever  that  may  be).  It  was  indeed  applied 
to  thieves,  as  in  this  line  :  — 

How  like  a  sheep-biting  rogue,  taken  i'  th'  manner ! 

Fletcher,  Rule  a  Wife,  etc.,  Act  V.  Sc.  4. 

and  so  it  was  to   malicious   persons,   as  in  the  following 

line  :  — 

His  hate  like  a  sheep-biter  fleering  aside. 
Tusser,  Envious  and  Naughtie  Neighbour,  p.  112,  ed.  1610. 

But  it  was  so  applied  merely  because  it  was  a  general  term 
of  reproach.  It  means  merely  "  mutton  -  eater."  This  I 
suggested  in  my  first  edition  of  "  Twelfth  Night  "  (1857) ; 
and  afterwards  I  found  the  following  reference  to  the  phrase 
by  Addison :  — 

Mutton  .  .  .  was  formerly  observed  to  be  the  food  rather  of  men  of  nice 
and  delicate  appetites  than  those  of  strong  and  robust  constitutions.  For 
which  reason  even  to  this  day  we  use  the  word  Sheep-biter  as  a  term  of  re- 
proach, as  we  do  Beef-eater  in  a  respectful,  honorable  sense. 

Taller,  No.  148 

Addison 's  testimony  (and  he  mentions  that  he  had  con- 
sulted antiquaries  —  in  1709  —  on  the  subject  of  his  paper) 
leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  compound,  and  as 
to  its  use  as  a  general  term  of  reproach.  But  I  venture  a 
dissent  from  his  inference  in  regard  to  delicate  appetites. 
Mutton  two  and  three  hundred  years  ago  was  looked  upon 
as  very  inferior  food  to  venison  and  to  beef ;  and  "  mutton- 
eater  "  coarsened  into  "  sheep-biter "  corresponded  to  the 
modern  "  tripe-eater." 

Even  a  glance  here  and  there  at  my  few  casual  checks 
upon  the  margins  of  this  Lexicon  leads  me  to  remark  upon 
the  extraordinary  misapprehension  which  gives  "  one  who 
goes  abroad  "  as  the  meaning  of  putter-out,  in  '*  each  putter- 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  311 

out  of  five  for  one  ;  "  l  which  tells  us  (the  word,  unseen  before, 
catches  my  eye  just  as  I  turn  the  leaves)  that  point  blank 
means  "  with  certain  aim,  so  as  not  to  miss,"  — point  blank 
having  nothing  to  do  with  aim,  or  hitting  or  missing,  but 
meaning  merely  "  in  a  direct  line,  on  a  level,  without  eleva- 
tion or  depression  of  the  gun  ;  "  and  finally,  at  the  misappre- 
hension, amazing  on  the  part  of  one  who  professes  to  inter- 
pret Shakespeare's  language,  in  consequence  of  which  —  will 
it  be  believed  ?  —  Bottom's  "  wren  with  little  quill  "  is  given 
as  an  example  of  the  use  of  quill  in  the  sense  "  the  strong 
feather  of  the  wing  of  a  bird."  Here  quill  means  pipe, 
note  :  "  little  quill  "  =  feeble  note.  This  whole  article  on 
quill  is  wrong.  A  quill  is  not  "  the  strong  feather  of  the 
wing  of  a  bird "  —  not  so  either  absolutely  or  in  Shake- 
speare's use  of  it.  The  lexicographers  are  loose  upon  this 
word.  A  quill  is  not  a  feather  at  all,  except  by  the  me- 
tonomy  by  which  one  part  is  put  for  another  or  a  part  for 
the  whole.  Every  feather  is  composed  of  quill  and  plume 
or  dowle.  The  quill  is  that  cylindrical  and  hollow  stem, 
which,  at  the  body-end,  tapers  away  in  fine  shell-covered 
pith,  from  which  the  plume  or  dowle  grows.  The  quill  is 
to  the  feather  as  the  trunk  and  branches  are  to  the  tree. 
Porcupines  have  quills,  but  they  have  no  feathers.  Birds 
have  feathers,  and  therefore  of  necessity  quills.  This  was 
happily,  although  unconsciously,  illustrated  by  Marlowe,  in 
the  following  simile  :  — 

As  if  a  goose  should  play  the  porcupine, 

And  dart  her  plumes,  seeking  to  pierce  my  breast. 

Edward  II.,"  Act  I.  Sc.  1. 

1  This  phrase,  and  the  practice  to  which  it  refers,  are  well  illustrated  and 
explained  by  the  following  jeu  d' 'esprit :  — 

Lycus,  which  lately  is  to  Venice  gone, 
Shall,  if  he  do  returne,  gain  three  for  one; 
But  ten  to  one  his  knowledge  and  his  wit 
Will  not  be  better' d  or  increas'd  a  whit. 

Davies'  Epigrams,  1599  (?),  xlii. 

This  Elizabethan  traveller,  who  went  to  "swim  in  a  gondola,"  as  Rosa- 
lind says,^*  out  his  money  at  three  for  one. 


312  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

In  flying  birds  the  quills  of  the  wing-feathers  are  strong, 
and  the  plume  or  dowle  is  close  and  compact;  in  some 
non-flying  birds,  as  the  ostrich,  the  quill  is  small  and  weak, 
and  the  plume  large  and  loosely  open.  But  all  feathers, 
even  those  on  the  breast  of  the  smallest  bird,  have  a  quill. 
It  is  by  the  quill  that  both  nourishment  and  substantial  form 
are  given  to  the  feather.  Quill,  from  the  resemblance  of 
the  most  important  part  of  the  thing  to  a  reed  (whence  in- 
deed its  name),  is  sometimes  used  by  the  poets  iorpipe.  But 
even  were  Bottom's  use  of  it  in  this  sense  unique,  it  would 
be  manifest  at  the  first  blush  to  every  intelligent  English 
reader. 

Thus  far  I  wrote,  having  only  dipped  here  and  there  into 
the  checks  upon  my  margins,  nine  years  ago.  Afterward, 
however,  I  thought  that,  having  written  so  much,  I  ought  to 
examine  the  Lexicon  somewhat  at  least  more  in  detail ;  and 
having  done  so,  I  present  as  briefly  as  possible  the  results  of 
my  partial  examination. 

If  a  book  should  be  judged  only  with  regard  to  its  pur- 
pose, Dr.  Schmidt's  Shakespeare  Lexicon  is  in  one  respect, 
so  far  as  I  have  examined  it,  and  in  so  far  as  I  am  compe- 
tent to  express  an  opinion  upon  the  point,  very  thorough,  and 
generally  accurate.  This  point  is  the  setting  forth,  in  the 
terminology  —  what  Benedick  calls  "  the  terminations  "  — 
of  the  grammarians,  the  various  modes  and  connections  in 
which  Shakespeare  uses  words.  Thus  we  are  told  that  certain 
adjectives  always  "  precede  "  or  always  "  follow  the  substan- 
tive ;  "  that  certain  words  or  phrases  are  used  "  only  in  con- 
ditional or  subordinate  clauses  ;  "  that  one  verb  is  used  "  with 
an  infinitive "  of  another ;  that  another  is  used  "  with  an 
accusative  ;  "  another  "  with  a  double  accusative  in  the  same 
sense  ;  "  that  "  in  speaking  of  future  things  "  before  is  "  fol- 
lowed by  the  subjunctive  mood  ;  "  and  that  a  preposition  is 
"  followed  by  the  subjunctive  in  hypothetical  and  problem- 
atical cases  ;  "  that  one  word  is  "  followed  by  an  accusative 
and  an  infinitive  without  to,"  and  that  another  is  "  joined  in 
a  periphrastical  way  to  different  substantives  implying  the 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  313 

idea  of  an  action  to  denote  the  respective  action,"  and  so 
forth.  If  it  is  desirable  that  this  should  be  done,  it  could 
not  be  done  more  thoroughly,  and,  except  by  an  equally  ac- 
complished English-speaking  grammarian,  not  more  accu- 
rately than  it  has  been  done  in  most  cases,  but  not  in  all,  by 
Dr.  Schmidt.  The  dissent  upon  which  I  venture  on  this 
point  is  not  as  to  the  execution,  but  as  to  the  purpose. 

It  is  needless  for  me  to  say  to  my  readers  at  this  late  day 
that  I  regard  all  such  treatment  of  the  English  language, 
and  particularly  all  such  treatment  of  Shakespeare's  lan- 
guage (for  English-speaking  readers  certainly)  as  sheer  van- 
ity and  vexation  of  spirit.  It  does  no  one  any  good.  It 
teaches  no  one  to  understand  Shakespeare,  to  understand 
English,  or  to  write  it.  It  is  mere  grammatical  pedagogism 
and  pedantry.  It  merely  records  in  a  sort  of  professional 
cant  facts  which  to  those  who  can  apprehend  them  at  all  are 
obvious,  untold,  and  unrecorded.  It  elucidates  nothing,  illus- 
trates nothing,  adds  nothing  whatever,  of  any  significance, 
to  the  sum  of  our  knowledge  of  Shakespeare,  his  plays  or 
his  language.  It  is  the  barrenest  of  all  barren  labors. 
Those  who  do  not  know  untold  what  it  tells  them,  and  who 
yet  wish  to  be  told  something  that  they  do  not  understand  ; 
and  those  who,  knowing  it  and  seeing  it,  yet  like  to  have 
the  patent  fact  seized  upon,  labelled,  and  filed  away  in  sight, 
will  find  their  heart's  desire  in  Dr.  Schmidt's  broad  columns. 
But  those  who  wish  to  understand  Shakespeare  will  find 
only  grammatical  dust  and  ashes. 

When  we  examine  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon  to  discover 
its  value  as  a  guide  to  Shakespeare's  meaning,  and  to  an 
understanding  of  his  use  of  language,  we  find,  accompany- 
ing evidences  of  an  acquaintance  with  English  and  even  of 
Shakespeare's  English  which  is  very  remarkable  in  a  Ger- 
man, much  that  is  misleading,  and  much  that  must  astonish 
any  English-speaking  reader  who  has  a  moderate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  literature  of  his  mother  tongue.  I  do  not 
profess  to  have  examined  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon  thor- 
oughly. I  have  not  the  time  for  such  a  task,  even  if  I  had 


314  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

the  inclination,  and  my  lack  of  inclination  is  shown  by  the 
years  which  I  have  allowed  to  pass  since  the  judgment  which 
I  formed  for  myself  alone  on  my  first  glance  through  its 
multitudinous  pages.  Moreover,  it  is  with  reluctance  that  I 
undertake  to  set  forth  with  any  detail  the  result  of  my  sec- 
ond, but  yet  very  incomplete  examination  of  it,  which  I  do 
only  because  I  am  driven  to  the  task  by  the  manner  in 
which  some  brief  dissenting  allusions  of  mine  to  it  have 
been  received  by  critics  whose  acquaintance  with  it  must,  I 
am  sure,  be  even  less  than  mine.  What  I  have  done  is 
merely  this,  —  to  look  cursorily,  very  cursorily,  over  the 
pages  of  the  first  four  letters  in  each  of  the  two  volumes, 
and  to  glance  in  like  manner  over  the  uncut  sheets  of  the 
remainder  of  the  work,  seeing  thus  only  two  pages  of  eight 
in  these  sheets,  and  cutting  a  leaf  now  and  then,  but  very 
rarely,  for  special  reference.  Let  us  consider  briefly  the 
results  of  this  imperfect,  rapid,  and  almost  casual  examina- 
tion. 

Under  the  heading  "  A  or  An ;  indefinite  article,  the 
two  forms  differing  as  at  present,"  I  find  it  remarked  that 
"  according  to  custom,  the  poet  says  once  a  day,  but  also 
once  in  a  month."  At  sight  of  this  one  is  tempted  to  ex- 
claim with  Mr.  Charley  Bates,  in  Dickens's  "  Oliver  Twist," 
"  Veil,  vot  of  it  ?  "  So  the  poet  says,  like  the  spelling- 
books,  "  go  up,"  "  go  on  "  ;  and  so  all  English-speaking  peo- 
ple for  centuries  have  said  both  "  once  a  day,"  and  "  once 
in  a  month."  If  Dr.  Schmidt  had  remarked  upon  the  con- 
struction and  meaning  of  the  phrase  "  once  a  day,"  he 
might  perhaps  have  said  something  of  interest  and  value  to 
his  readers ;  but  what  is  the  use  of  this  telling  everybody 
what  everybody  knows,  that  Shakespeare  has  used  phrases 
that  everybody  else  uses  in  the  sense  in  which  they  are  used 
by  everybody  ? 

So  we  are  told  that  a  or  an  is  "  used  for  one,"  and  some 
twenty  and  more  examples  are  given.  But  a  or  an  is  al- 
ways used  for  one,  being  a  mere  phonetic  variation  of  it ; 
of  which  Dr.  Schmidt  cannot  be  ignorant.  Whether  we 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  315 

say  "at  a  blow,"  or  "at  one  blow,"  is  determined  merely 
by  the  comparative  haste  or  deliberation  with  which  we 
speak.  There  is  not  the  shadow  of  a  shade  of  difference  in 
meaning.  Only  one  of  the  examples  cited  is  worthy  of 
record,  and  hardly  that;  for  it  is  from  the  Nurse  in  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet,"  "  rosemary  and  Romeo  begin  with  a  letter." 
So  she  and  Mrs.  Quickly  might  speak  ;  but  their  English  is 
no  indication  of  usage  of  any  kind.  Other  persons  would 
say,  with  the  same  letter. 

Upon  a  as  a  phonetic  remnant  or  corruption  of  in,  on, 
and  of,  we  find  the  remark  that  "  even  this  a  before  vowels 
is  sometimes  changed  to  an"  of  which  such  examples  as 
"  set  an  edge  "  and  "  stand  an  end  "  are  cited.  But  there 
is  no  change  of  a  to  an  here  ;  such  phrases  as  "  set  a  edge  " 
and  "  stand  a  end  "  being  unknown.  Dr.  Schmidt  has  been 
here  following  the  ignis  fatuus  of  a  mere  misprint,  an  for  on. 
But  he  does  more  when  he  adds  that  in  "  They  said  they 
were  an-hungry  "  we  have  "  a  solecism  formed  in  derision 
by  Coriolanus."  In  this  compact  opinion  Dr.  Schmidt  is 
right  except  upon  three  points.  The  phrase  is  not  a  sole- 
cism ;  it  is  not  used  in  derision  ;  it  is  not  formed  by  Corio- 
lanus. This  every  reader  knows  who  (to  go  no  farther)  re- 
members his  English  Bible :  "  And  when  He  had  fasted 
forty  days  and  forty  nights,  He  was  afterward  an  hungered" 
Matt.  iv.  2  ;  "  What  David  did  when  he  .  .  .  was  an  hun- 
gered" Mark  ii.  25  ;  and  there  are  half  a  dozen  more  in- 
stances. And  see  the  following  from  Lodge's  "  Euphues 
his  Legacie  :  "  — 

Seeing  the  coast  cleere,  he  shut  the  doores,  and  being  sore  an  hungred, 
and  seeing  such  good  victuals,  etc. 

It  is  just  possible,  but  very  doubtful,  that  in  this  well-known 
old  English  phrase  we  have  a  phonetic  representative  of  en- 
hungered. 

Queen  Katherine  says  to  Wolsey,  "  I  utterly  abhor  you 
for  my  judge,"  and  Blackstone  remarked  that  this  is  "  a 
term  of  the  canon  law."  Therefore  Dr.  Schmidt  will 
have  it  that  "  hence,  in  comical  imitation  of  the  judicial 
language,"  Antipholus  exclaims,  — 


316  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

She  that  doth  call  me  husband,  even  my  soul 
Doth  for  a  wife  abhor. 

Comedy  of  Errors,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

How  thoroughly  German  this  is,  to  tie  the  two  things  to- 
gether, and  evolve  one  out  of  the  other  !  It  would  have  oc- 
curred to  no  English  editor  any  more  than  to  Shakespeare 
himself.  It  is  all  abroad.  Antipholus  is  not  speaking 
comically,  he  was  never  more  serious  in  his  life  ;  and  he 
uses  abhor  just  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  by  all  Shake- 
speare's other  personages,  Queen  Katherine  included  —  the 
ordinary  sense.  For  Shakespeare  himself  had  not  the 
slightest  notion  of  using  the  word  in  its  canonical  sense  in 
"  Henry  VIII.  ; "  and  of  that  sense  we  may  be  sure  he  was 
quite  ignorant.  He  merely  took  both  words,  abhor  and  re- 
fuse, in  this  passage,  right  out  of  Holinshed,  just  as  he 
found  them. 

In  regard  to  such  words  as  about,  the  Shakespeare  Lex- 
icon darkens  counsel  by  setting  up  divisions  of  their  mean- 
ing which  are  senseless ;  which  in  reality  do  not  exist.  For 
example,  "  hang  no  more  about  me,"  and  "  you  have  not 
the  book  of  riddles  about  you,"  head  respectively  the  quota- 
tions in  two  articles,  with  an  attempt  at  a  distinction  of 
meaning;  the  meaning  in  all  being  absolutely  the  same. 
The  Lexicon  is  full  of  such  futile  work.  Of  about  as  used 
with  the  sense  "  to  a  certain  point,  to  an  appointed  or  de- 
sired place,"  we  have  the  Host's  speech,  in  the  "Merry 
Wives,"  Act  II.  Sc.  3  :  UI  will  bring  the  doctor  about  by 
the  fields,"  cited  as  an  example,  with  the  gloss,  "  i.  e.,  to 
the  appointed  place."  But  who  needs  to  be  told  that  what 
the  host  says  is  that  he  will  bring  the  doctor  by  a  round- 
about, unobserved  way  !  He  says  to  Page  and  Slender, 
"  Go  you  through  the  town,  .  .  .  and  I  will  bring  the  doctor 
about  by  the  fields."  Of  the  same  meaning  we  have  "  the 
wind  is  come  about "  cited  as  an  example,  with  the  added 
gloss  "  has  become  favourable."  Not  so  at  all.  The  wind 
may  come  about  and  become  favorable,  as  it  does  in  this 
case ;  but  it  may  just  as  well  come  about  and  blow  a  hurri- 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  317 

cane,  or  from  an  unfavorable  quarter.    It  comes  about  when, 
as  Barclolph  might  say,  it  comes  about. 

Dr.  Schmidt  takes  it  upon  him  not  infrequently  to  re- 
buke English  editors  of  Shakespeare,  and  quite  sharply. 
For  example,  he  says  that  in  the  line  of  "  Romeo  and  Ju- 
liet,"— 

Young  Abraham  Cupid,  he  that  shot  so  trim,  — 

Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

"  modern  editors  quite  preposterously  "  read  "  Young  Adam 
Cupid."  Now  among  the  editors  thus  sorely  shent  are  Stee- 
vens,  Dyce,  the  "Cambridge  "  editors,  Rolfe  and  Dr.  Fur- 
ness.  But  perhaps  Dr.  Schmidt  thinks  it  becoming  in  a 
deutscher  Realschuldirector  to  snub  such  Englishmen  upon 
their  view  of  the  language  of  Shakespeare.  It  would  have 
been  better  for  him,  however,  to  choose  other  occasions  than 
those  he  has  taken  for  this  amusement,  as  we  shall  see.  As 
to  Abraham  (which  surely  is  here  either  a  misprint  of 
Adam  mistaken  for  Abram,  or  the  old  irregular  form  of 
Auburn),  even  were  it  to  be  retained,  nothing  could  be 
more  absurd  than  the  reason  for  such  retention  assigned  in 
the  Lexicon,  that  it  is  "  in  derision  of  the  eternal  boyhood 
of  Cupid,  though,  in  fact,  he  was  at  least  as  old  as  father 
Abraham ;  "  which  in  its  mingling  of  tenuous  subtlety  and 
literal  pre-post-erroneousness  approaches  perilously  near  ab- 
solute nonsense.  But  as  to  Abraham,  Dr.  Schmidt  seems 
in  a  parlous  state  that  would  have  delighted  Touchstone ; 
for  his  very  next  article  is,  u  Abram  =  Abraham,  in  the 
language  of  Shylock."  He  is  then  actually  ignorant,  or 
had  forgotten,  that  the  patriarch's  name  was  Abram,  and 
that  it  was  not  until  he  was  ninety  years  old  and  nine  that 
his  name  became  Abraham,  the  change  having  been  made 
by  special  divine  command.  Abram  makes  his  appearance 
in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  and  it  is  not  until  the  seven- 
teenth that  he  is  called  Abraham. 

Acknowledge  furnishes  us  with  a  mistake  of  a  sort  which 
is  characteristic  of  this  Lexicon.  The  gloss  "  to  claim  ac- 
quaintance of  "  is  given  for  the  passage  in  the  XXXVIth 
Sonnet :  — 


318  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

I  may  not  evermore  acknowledge  thee 

Lest  my  bewailed  guilt  should  do  thee  shame. 

But  here  it  is  the  person  addressed  who  claims  acquaintance, 
which  claim  the  speaker  says  he  may  no  more  acknowledge. 
Add  is  said  to  mean  "  to  make  out  by  arithmetical  addi- 
tion," in  Moth's  verse-trap  (Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  Act 
III.  Sc.  1),— 

The  fox,  the  ape  and  the  humble-bee 

Were  still  at  odds,  being  but  three; 

Until  the  goose  came  out  of  door 

And  stay'd  the  odds  by  adding  four. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Realschuldirector  did  not  use  this 
as  an  example  in  his  teaching  of  arithmetic.  For  upon  a 
moment's  reflection  he  will  see  that  if  the  goose  had  added 
four,  she  would  not  have  stayed  the  odds  at  all,  but  would 
merely  have  made  three  seven  !  He  would  have  contrib- 
uted to  the  understanding  of  Shakespeare,  if  he  had  re- 
marked that  in  this  passage  adding  is  heedlessly  written  for 
making.  The  goose,  by  coming  out,  made  four  instead  of 
the  odd  number  three. 

I  am  skipping,  and  must  skip,  over  many  articles  which 
arrested  my  progress  ;  and  I  shall  be  obliged,  so  tedious  and 
so  unwelcome  is  this  work,  to  touch  but  here  and  there.  I 
must  pause,  however,  for  a  moment  upon  the  explanation 
of  the  very  difficult  passage  (Antony  and  Cleopatra,  Act  II. 
Sc.  2),— 

Her  gentlewomen,  like  the  Nereides, 

So  many  mermaids,  tended  her  i'  th'  eyes, 

And  made  their  bends  adornings ; 

where  the  Lexicon  tells  us  that  the  last  line  means,  "  re- 
garded her  with  such  veneration  as  to  reflect  beauty  on  her, 
to  make  her  more  beautiful  by  their  looks,"  —  of  all  the 
glosses  that  have  been  given,  certainly  the  most  far-fetched 
and  insufferable.  The  passage  probably  was  intended  to 
have  its  simplest,  baldest  meaning ;  that  Cleopatra's  female 
attendants  were  so  graceful  that  their  bows  and  curtsies 
(called  bends  by  Shakespeare)  became  an  added  adornment 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  319 

to  the  scene.  Compare  the  passage  in  North's  Plutarch, 
which  Shakespeare  was  working  into  blank  verse :  — 

"  Her  ladies  and  gentlewomen  also,  the  fairest  of  them 
were  apparelled  like  the  Nereids  (which  are  the  mermaids 
of  the  waters),  and  like  the  Graces." 

Why  does  Dr.  Schmidt  tell  us  that  aguize,  in  "  I  do 
aguize  a  natural  prompt  alacrity,"  means  "  to  own  with  pride, 
to  enjoy."  There  is  in  it  no  sense  of  pride,  still  less  of  en- 
joyment. It  is  merely  a  rare  word  for  "  acknowledge," 
"confess."  Dr.  Schmidt  would  have  found  it  so  defined 
by  Bailey,  1724,  and  by  Johnson  and  Nares  and  Halliwell ; 
the  latter  three  citing  this  very  passage.  A  like  mistake  is 
made  frequently ;  as  for  example,  "  archery,  skill  of  an 
archer,"  has  the  gloss  of  "  hit  with  Cupid's  archery ;  "  in 
which  there  is  no  question  of  skill,  but  merely  of  shooting 
with  the  bow. 

And  what  sort  of  understanding  of  English  is  it  that 

in  — 

Every  minute  is  expectancy 
Of  more  arrivance  — 

takes  arrivance  to  mean  "  company  coming  "  ?  The  read- 
ing of  the  folio,  "arrivancy,"  should  have  taught  the  Dr. 
Schmidt  better.  What  was  expected  was  acts  of  arrival. 

Arrivance  in  the  sense  of  company  coming  is  like  "  There 
were  many  arrivals  this  afternoon,  and  some  of  the  arri- 
vals went  to  the  new  Caravanserai  Hotel ; "  which,  al- 
though it  may  be  found  in  some  newspapers,  and  heard 
from  some  lips,  is  neither  sense  nor  English.  An  arrival  is 
an  act. 

Ascaunt  (if  it  be  retained  in  preference  to  the  better 
reading,  aslant)  in  the  passage,  "  There  is  a  willow  grows 
ascaunt  the  brook,"  does  not  mean  "  across."  Indeed,  that 
is  just  what  it  does  not  mean.  It  means  "  obliquely,"  "  lean- 
ing to  one  side."  Such  willows  by  such  brooks  lean  over 
them,  and  never  at  right  angles  with  the  stream,  but  always 
inclined  more  or  less  up  or  down,  —  aslant. 

Most  misleading  to  any  student  of  English  is  the  asser- 


320  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

tion,  under  ask,  that  it  is  used  "  with  a  double  accusative 
in  the  same  sense  "  in  the  passage,  "  Ask  me  no  reason," 
"  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  Act  II.  Sc.  1.  Here  are  not 
two  accusatives.  In  "  Whom  did  he  ask  ?  He  asked  me," 
me  is  accusative  or  objective ;  but  in  "  He  asked  me  my 
reason,"  me  is  genitive,  or  instrumental.  Dr.  Schmidt  has 
been  misled  by  an  assumed  analogy  with  the  Latin  rogo. 
In  the  next  article  the  same  misapprehension  appears.  We 
are  told  that  there  is  a  double  accusative  in  "  must  ask  my 
child  forgiveness  "  (Tempest,  Act  V.  Sc.  1).  Child  is  in 
no  sense  the  object  of  ask.  The  construction  is,  "  ask  for- 
giveness [of]  my  child." 

Assemblance,  in  "  What  care  I  for  the  limb,  the  thewes, 
the  stature,  and  big  assemblance  of  a  man"  (2  Henry  IV., 
Act  III.  Sc.  2),  is  glossed  as  meaning  "  external  aspect." 
But  then  comes  an  appealing  cry  in  parenthesis,  "  or  can  it 
possibly  be  =  the  conglomerate  ?  "  How  could  it  possibly 
be  anything  else?  —  only  we  poor  English  folk  do  not  feel 
obliged  to  use  quite  so  big  a  word  for  it  as  conglomerate. 

Attaint  is  incorrectly  said  to  mean  "  convicted  of  capital 
treason."  Attainder  is  a  legislative,  not  a  juridical  act. 
It  is  always  by  bill  in  Parliament.  The  Earl  of  Straff  ord  was 
attainted  because  his  persecutors  despaired  of  convicting 
him  of  high  treason. 

Ay.  It  surely  must  be  merely  because  of  the  German- 
hood  of  Dr.  Schmidt  that  he  says  that  ay  is  used  for  why  in 
passages  like  these  :  "  I  would  resort  to  her  at  night.  Ay, 
but  the  doors  be  locked."  "  Ay,  but  she  '11  think  that  it  is 
spoke  in  hate."  In  both  these  passages  (which  are  both 
from  "  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona"),  ay  means  simply 
"  yes,"  in  the  connective,  talk -continuing  way  in  which  it  is 
now  used.  These  cases  are  selected  as  examples  of  error, 
because  the  context  in  both  makes  both  the  error  and  the 
true  sense  clear,  and  in  each  in  a  different  way.  In  the 
first,  the  colloquial  why  (omitted  in  the  Lexicon)  is  a  part 
of  the  speech  to  which  why  begins  the  reply,  and  accom- 
plishes our  purpose  by  contrast,  thus  (Act  III.  Sc.  1)  :  — 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  32* 

Vol.    Why,  then,  I  would  resort  to  her  by  night. 
Duke.    Ay,  but  the  doors  be  lock'd,  etc. 

In  the  second  (Act  III.  Sc.  2)  it  so  happens  that  the  ay 
cited  and  glossed  in  the  Lexicon  is  immediately  followed  by 
a?/,  and  that  the  context  shows  to  any  English-speaking  per- 
son that  the  meaning  of  both  is  the  same,  and  what  that 
meaning  is :  — 

Pro.    The  best  way  is  to  slander  Valentine 
With  falsehood,  cowardice,  and  poor  descent, 
Three  things  that  women  highly  hold  in  hate. 
Duke.    Ay,  but  she  '11  think  that  it  is  spoke  in  hate. 
Pro.     Ay,  if  his  enemy  deliver  it. 

In  all  these  cases,  it  need  hardly  be  said  yes  may  be  substi- 
tuted for  ay  without  affecting  in  any  way  the  meaning,  the 
tone,  or  the  colloquial  character  of  the  dialogue. 

Bacon,  we  are  told,  is  "  hog's  flesh  pickled.'  No,  as  all 
English-speaking  persons  know.  Pickle  is  a  fluid,  brine,  with 
sometimes  an  addition  of  vinegar.  The  distinctive  quality 
of  bacon  is  that  it  is  cured  dry ;  hung  up  to  dry  in  smoke. 

Bait,  as  a  verb,  in  the  following  passage  is  said  to  be  "  of 
uncertain  signification  :  "  — 

Ye  are  lazy  knaves, 

And  here  ye  lie,  baiting  of  bombards,  when 
Ye  should  do  service. 

And  we  have  the  query  "  =  to  broach  ?  "  Not  at  all.  To 
bait  is  to  eat  or  drink  lightly,  "  between  whiles."  People 
on  a  short  journey  stop  and  bait ;  i.  e.,  refresh  themselves. 
These  knaves,  instead  of  doing  their  duty,  were  drinking 
"  by-drinks  "  from  the  bombards  of  liquor. 

In  Macbeth's  phrase,  "  upon  the  bank  and  school  of 
time,"  as  it  is  printed  in  the  folio,  Dr.  Schmidt  retains 
school  and  suggests  that  we  should  read  bench,  to  be  con- 
sistent with  school ;  doing  this  because  he  does  not  perceive 
(very  naturally)  that  school  is  a  mere  phonetic  irregularity 
for  shoal.  But  still,  what  manner  of  Shakespearean  scholar 
is  he  who,  for  any  reason,  would  have  Macbeth  say,  — 

But  here,  upon  this  bench  and  school  of  time, 
We  '11  jump  the  life  to  come, 

instead  of  "  upon  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time  "  ? 


322  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

To  sell  one  a  bargain  does  not  mean  "  to  embarrass  one 
by  an  unexpected  reply,"  but  u  to  set  a  trap  for  one,  to  mis- 
lead and  deceive  him,  to  take  him  in,"  in  trade,  and  so,  met- 
aphorically, in  speech,  as  Costard  does  in  "  Love's  Labour  's 
Lost,"  Act  III.  Sc.  1,  the  only  passage  in  which  Shakespeare 
uses  the  phrase  :  — 

The  boy  hath  sold  him  a  bargain,  a  goose,  that 's  flat. 
Sir,  your  pennyworth  is  good,  an  your  goose  be  fat. 
To  sell  a  bargain  well  is  as  cunning  as  fast  and  loose. 

Batten  means  properly  "  to  grow  fat,"  as  Dr.  Schmidt  de- 
fines it ;  and  I  remark  upon  it  here  merely  to  say  that,  in 
my  opinion,  in  both  the  passages  in  which  it  appears  in 
Shakespeare's  plays  he  misused  it,  manifestly,  in  the  sense 
"  to  feed  grossly."  He  misapprehended  the  meaning  of  the 
word,  as  he  did  that  of  many  others. 

Follow  your  function  ;  go,  and  batten  on  cold  bits. 

Coriolanus,  Act  IV.  Sc.  5. 

Its  true  meaning  appears  in  the  following  passage  :  — 

Itha.  Why  master,  will  you  poison  her  with  a  mess  of  rice  porridge  ? 
That  will  preserve  life,  make  her  round  and  plump,  and  batten  more  than 
you  are  aware.  Marlowe,  The  Jew  of  Malta,  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

Have  you  eyes  ? 

Could  you  on  this  fair  mountain  leave  to  feed, 
And  batten  on  this  moor  ? 

Hamlet,  Act  III.  Sc.  4. 

Bawd-born,  in  "  bawd  he  is  doubtless,  and  of  antiquity 
too,  bawd-born,"  certainly  does  not  mean  "  a  bawd  from 
birth,"  but  simply  "  born  of  a  bawd." 

The  verb  to  be  is  treated  with  multitudinous  divisions  and 
subdivisions,  in  which  I  note  many  misapprehensions  and 
overstrained  subtleties  of  discrimination,  which  I  must  pass 
over,  and  remark  briefly  upon  the  last  division,  in  which  we 
are  told  that  "  verbs  neuter  are  often  conjugated  with  to  be 
instead  of  to  have"  as  "  this  gentleman  is  happily  arrived." 
Often  !  Is  it  possible  that  a  scholar  makes  a  Shakespeare 
Lexicon,  and  does  not  know  that  in  all  such  cases  to  be  is 
the  proper  verb,  the  one  used  by  all  writers  of  good  Eng- 
lish, and  that  the  use  of  to  have  is  very  recent  and  not  yet 


GLOSSARIKS  AND   LEXICONS.  323 

fully  recognized  ?  And  what  shall  be  said  of  the  subsequent 
remark,  "  but  the  use  of  is  instead  of  have  in  transitive 
verbs  must  be  considered  as  an  inadvertence  in  writing, 
etc. !  "  Now  Shakespeare  was  inadvertent  enough  in  his 
writing  upon  all  points  of  grammatical  accuracy  ;  but  what- 
ever may  be  the  better  form  here,  there  was  no  inadver- 
tence :  such  forms  as  "  the  King  is  set  him  down  to  sleep  " 
being  common  with  the  best  writers,  not  only  in  Shake- 
speare's time,  but  long  afterward. 

Beadle,  "  a  public  whipper,"  is  simply  mistaken  and 
laughable  ;  although  beadles  did  sometimes  whip,  as  also 
hangmen  did. 

The  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  meaning  and  uses  of 
to  bear  are  even  more  extravagant  than  those  of  to  be.  Com- 
mon sense  would  reduce  them  all  to  three  or  four. 

"  Modern  editors  "  are  shent  again  for  taking  the  forms 
berrord,  berard,  and  bearard  for  bear-ward  !  Not  unnatu- 
rally, our  German  professor  does  not  see  that  the  former  are 
mere  phonetic  spellings  of  the  pronunciation  of  the  latter  ; 
as  Warwick  is  pronounced  not  War-wick,  but  Warrick. 

Behove  is  denned  as  meaning  "  to  be  advantageous  to  " 
in  such  passages  as  "there  are  cozeners  abroad,  therefore  it 

i  O 

behoves  men  to  be  wary."  Quite  wrongly.  Behove  always 
means  "  it  is  the  duty  of,  it  becomes." 

Bent,  we  are  told,  in  "  her  affections  have  their  full  bent," 
and  the  like,  is  "  properly  an  expression  of  archery."  Quite 
wrongly,  again.  When  we  speak  of  the  bent  of  a  states- 
man's policy,  or  the  bent  of  a  man's  mind,  or  the  bent  of  a 
woman's  affections,  there  is  not,  nor  was  there  ever  any  al- 
lusion to  the  bending  of  a  bow.  It  is  merely  a  stronger 
English  word,  and  a  better,  for  "  inclination,  tendency." 

Bevel  does  not  mean  "  crooked,"  or  anything  like  it,  as 
every  carpenter  knows.  A  bevel  on  the  contrary  is  straight. 
Bevel  means  merely  "  at  an  acute  angle  with,  diagonal,  slop- 
ing ;  "  what  women,  in  cutting  dresses,  call  "  bias."  Here 
Dyce  and  old  Bailey  are  wrong  also.  In  the  only  passage 
in  which  Shakespeare  uses  the  word  (CXXIth  Sonnet),  — 


324  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

No,  I  am  that  I  am ;  and  they  that  level 

At  my  abuses  reckon  up  their  own. 

I  may  be  straight,  though  they  themselves  be  bevel ; 

the  meaning  is  that  the  others  go  off  at  an  angle  from  the 
path  of  rectitude  ;  and  the  farther  they  go,  the  greater  of 
course  their  aberration. 

Billingsgate,  "  a  place  in  England,"  is  a  most  extraordi- 
nary definition.  So  is  Birmingham  a  place  in  England. 
Billingsgate  is,  and  for  centuries  has  been,  the  great  fish- 
market  of  London,  where  formerly  was  the  Billings  Gate. 

Blue-eyed.  Dr.  Schmidt  has  "  authority  "  for  saying  that 
this  phrase,  in  "  this  blue-eyed-hag  "  (Tempest,  Act  I.  Sc.  2), 
means  "having  a  blueness,  a  black  circle  about  the  eyes." 
I  wish  merely  to  record  here  my  own  conviction  that  Shake- 
speare had  in  mind  that  pale-blue,  fish-like,  malignant  eye, 
which  is  often  seen  in  hag-like  women. 

Body,  "  the  frame  of  an  animal."  No,  surely ;  not  the 
frame,  but  the  substance.  The  skeleton  is  the  frame. 

Body  kins,  "  a  scurrilous  exclamation."  But  of  what 
meaning  ?  Nor  is  it  scurrilous.  "  God's  bodikins  "  merely 
means  "  by  God's  little  body.  " 

Bone.  Mercutio's  "  O,  their  bones  !  their  bones  /  "  is 
pronounced  "  unintelligible,"  and  it  is  suggested  that  he 
meant,  a  I  should  like  to  beat  them."  Mercutio  (Romeo 
and  Juliet,  Act  II.  Sc.  4)  is  ridiculing  the  travelled  fops, 
with  their  " perdona  mi's  ;  "  and  "  their  bones  "  are  merely 
their  "  bon,  bon."  French  words  were  almost  invariably  pro- 
nounced in  the  plain  English  way.  For  example,  Cceur  de 
Lion,  bluntly  Cordelion. 

Bow-hand.  Dr.  Schmidt  queries,  "The  hand  which 
draws  the  bow,  or  that  which  holds  the  bow  ?  "  The  latter  ; 
as  every  one  knows  who  has  practised  archery  ;  and  also  the 
origin  of  the  phrase  "  wide  o'  th'  bow-hand  "  —  "  far  from 
the  mark ;  "  its  only  use  by  Shakespeare.  The  bow  has  to 
be  held  very  firmly  by  the  left  hand  against  the  pull  of  the 
string  by  the  right ;  and  when  the  string  is  loosed  at  the 
shot,  the  reaction,  unless  the  bow-hand  is  very  steady,  takes 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  325 

the  bow,  and  with  it  the  arrow,  to  the  left ;  so  that  most 
poor  shots  are  likely  to  be  wide  o'  th'  bow-hand,  i.  e.,  on 
the  left  side. 

I  come  now  to  an  article  of  such  an  extraordinary  nature, 
and  yet  so  significant  of  the  writer's  fitness  to  explain 
Shakespeare's  language,  that  I  wish  to  say  (what,  by  the 
way,  is  true  in  every  case),  that  I  give  it  without  a  shade  of 
variation,  verbatim,  literatim  et  punctuatim.  At  the  end 
of  the  article  on  the  noun  boy,  after  a  wholly  needless  set- 
ting forth  of  all  the  variations  in  the  sorts  of  boys  sug- 
gested by  Shakespeare's  text,  —  needless  because  any  intel- 
ligent reader  sees  and  knows  them  untold,  —  we  come  upon 
a  boy  who,  the  intelligent  reader  will  at  once  confess,  is  a 
youngster  quite  new  to  him.  Cleopatra,  in  the  bitterness  of 
defeat  and  prospective  captivity,  says  :  — 

Antony 

Shall  be  brought  drunken  forth,  and  I  shall  see 
Some  squeaking  Cleopatra  boy  my  greatness,  etc. 

Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

This  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon  thus  sets  forth  and  explains : 
"I  shall  see  some  squeaking  Cleopatra-boy  my  greatness. 
i.  e.,  I  shall  see  some  boy,  performing  the  part  of  Cleo- 
patra, as  my  highness."  This  u  squeaking  Cleopatra-boy  " 
certainly  beats  all  the  famous  camels  that  have  ever  been 
evolved  from  the  German  moral  consciousness.  As  a  com- 
pounded substantive  he  surpasses,  far  surpasses,  that  "  green- 
one"  by  which  Macbeth's  "making  the  green,  one  red" 
was  converted  into  "  making  the  green-one,  red.  "  Here 
"boy"  is  not  a  substantive,  but,  by  one  of  Shakespeare's 
happy  and  most  characteristic  feats  of  language,  a  verb! 
No  reader  —  no  English  reader,  at  least,  who  is  intelligent 
enough  to  read  Shakespeare  at  all — needs  to  be  told  that 
what  the  vanquished  queen  says  she  shrinks  from  is  see- 
ing some  young  male  actor  boy  her  greatness.  What  Dr. 
Schmidt  finds  in  the  text  is  a  "  Cleopatra-boy  "  appearing  as 
Cleopatra's  highness  !  The  substantive  arrangement  of  the 
passage,  the  hyphen,  and  the  parenthetical  pointing  of  "  per- 


326  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

forming  the  part  of  Cleopatra  "  in  the  gloss  leave  no  loop- 
hole of  doubt  on  this  point.  It  is  the  most  self-stultifying 
comment  upon  Shakespeare  that  was  ever  written.  I  have 
seen  this  Lexicon  mentioned  with  respect  as  an  "  authority  " 
upon  Shakespeare's  language.  Had  those  who  thus  charac- 
terized it  ever  examined  it,  even  in  my  cursive,  casual  way  ? 

Dr.  Schmidt  is  a  good  English  scholar,  a  good  gram- 
marian, and  he  writes  English  notably  well  for  a  German ; 
but  he  frequently  shows  his  inability  to  apprehend  English 
idiom.  For  example,  he  tells  us  in  his  grammarian's  way 
that  brave  is  found  "  followed  by  a  superfluous  it, "  in 
"  Lucius  and  I  '11  go  brave  it  at  the  court "  (Titus  An- 
dronicus,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1).  Here  it  is  not  at  all  superfluous. 
Without  the  pronoun  the  sentence  would  not  be  English. 
So  we  say  "  to  face  it  out,"  "  to  carry  it  boldly,"  etc.  And 
in  the  expressive  slang  phrase  "  to  go  it  strong,"  the  slang 
is  not  in  the  it. 

In  saying  that  "bung,  in  Doll  Tear-Sheet's  "away  you 
cut-purse  rascal,  you  filthy  bung,  away,"  is  "a  low  term 
for  a  sharper,"  Dr.  Schmidt  expands  Mr.  Dyce's  gloss,  by 
which  he  has  been  misled.  The  word  is,  indeed,  a  low  term 
here,  but  not  exactly  for  a  sharper,  although  it  is  applied  to 
a  filthy  one. 

Buttery  is  not  "  a  room  where  provisions  are  laid  up," 
but,  on  the  contrary,  one  where  they  are  distributed  or  dis- 
pensed. The  store-room  and  the  cellar  are  where  they  are 
laid  up. 

Buz  (in  Hamlet,  Act  II.  Sc.  2)  is  most  certainly  not  "  an 
interjection,  or  rather,  a  sibilant  sound  to  command  silence." 
It  is  merely  Hamlet's  whimsical,  scornful  way  of  saying 
"  fudge!  nonsense  !"  Wherefore  Polonius  immediately  be- 
gins to  protest,  "  Upon  mine  honour  "  —  and  Hamlet  again 
jeers  him. 

Here  is  another  gloss  that  will  astonish  every  reader  by 
its  far-fetched  ineptness.  In  "  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  Act 
I.  Sc.  2,  Mecsenas,  describing  the  Egyptian  festivities,  says, 
"Eight  wild  boars  roasted  whole,"  etc.;  to  which  Enobar- 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  327 

bus  replies,  "  This  was  but  as  a  fly  by  an  eagle ;  "  i.  e.,  this 
was  a  very  small  matter  compared  to  some  others :  plain 
enough  of  itself,  but  made  certain  by  the  continuation  of 
the  speech,  "we  had  much  more  monstrous  matter  of 
feast,"  etc.  But  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon  says  Enobarbus 
means  this  was  "  as  a  fly  for  every  one  to  feed  on  in  a  com- 
pany of  eagles !  " 

In  Hermia's  exclamation  (Midsummer  -  Night's  Dream, 
Act  III.  Sc.  2)  "  you  canker-blossom,"  the  Lexicon  tells  us 
that  canker-blossom  is  a  "  blossom  eaten  by  a  canker  or  a 
canker-bloom."  But  it  does  not  mean  a  blossom  or  a  bloom 
at  all.  Hermia  calls  Helena  one  who  cankers  blossoms,  one 
who  destroys  the  blossoms  of  hope  in  love,  as  the  canker- 
worm  destroys  flowers,  —  a  canker-blossom.  So  she  con- 
tinues, "  You  thief  of  love." 

Carve.  Of  this  word  in  Falstaff's  "  she  discourses,  she 
carves,"  (Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Act  I.  Sc.  3)  the  Lexi- 
con gives  the  gloss  "  to  show  great  courtesy  and  affability." 
Now  this  is  no  meaning  for  the  word.  Courtesy  and  affa- 
bility might  lead  to  carving,  but  they  might  exist  in  the 
highest  degree  without  it.  This  error  is  the  less  excusable 
because  the  author  of  the  Lexicon  refers  to  Dyce's  Glos- 
sary, where  the  correct  interpretation  is  set  forth.  Carving 
was  a  motion  of  the  hands,  and  particularly  of  the  little 
finger.  The  point  was  first  settled  by  a  citation  from 
Overbury's  "  Characters,"  p.  16,  made  in  "  Shakespeare's 
Scholar,"  1854.  Mr.  Lettsom  (whom  Dr.  Schmidt  seems 
to  have  followed),  in  a  note  to  William  Sidney  Walker's 
"  Critical  Examination,"  1860,  says  (Vol.  III.  p.  25)  :  — 

It  appears  from  the  curious  passage  adduced  from  Overbury  by  Mr. 
Grant  White  that  there  really  was  "  a  sign  of  intelligence  made  by  the 
little  finger  as  the  glass  was  raised  to  the  mouth,"  and  that  this  bewraied 
carving.  Carving,  therefore  (at  least  this  sort  of  it)  must  have  been  not 
this  or  any  other  sign,  but  something  that  this  sign  indicated.  Perhaps, 
however,  some  words  may  be  lost  in  Overbury. 

This  ingenious  inference  was,  however,  set  aside  by  a  cita- 
tion from  Littleton  in  my  first  edition.  The  whole  matter 
was  thus  set  forth  in  Dyce's  Glossary,  to  which,  as  I  have 
said,  Dr.  Schmidt  refers  his  readers. 


328  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

More  recenth'  Mr.  Grant  White  has  still  further  illustrated  the  word 
carves.  "Thus,"  he  says,  in  "  A  Very  Woman,"  among  the  characters 
published  with  Sir  Thomas  Overbury's  "  Wife,"  "  Her  lightness  gets  her 
to  swim  at  the  top  of  the  table,  where  her  wrie  little  finger  bewraies  carv- 
ing ;  her  neighbours  at  the  latter  end  know  they  are  welcome,  and  for  that 
purpose  she  quencheth  her  thirst."  Sig.  E,  3d  ed.  1632.  See  also  Little- 
ton's Latin  Dictionary,  1675,  "A  Carver:  chironomus."  " Chironomus, 
One  that  maketh  apish  motions  with  his  hands.'11  "  Chironomia  :  A  kind 
of  gesture  with  the  hands,  either  in  dancing,  carving  of  meat,  or  pleading, 
etc.,  etc." 

Dr.  Schmidt  should  therefore  have  known  that  carving 
was  not  showing  great  courtesy  or  affability,  but  specifically 
a  motion  with  the  hands  or  fingers.  Littleton's  full  defini- 
tions, particularly  when  taken  in  connection  with  Overbury's 
detailed  and  graphic  description,  leave  no  room  for  doubt 
on  the  subject. 

Castle.  Prince  Hal,  addressing  Falstaff  (1  Henry  IV. 
Act  II.)  calls  him  u  my  old  lad  of  the  castle,"  which  the  Lex- 
icon says  is  "  a  familiar  appellation,  equivalent  to  old  bitck.'' 
Not  so  at  all ;  as  everv  student  of  Shakespeare  knows.  The 
name  of  Falstaff  in  the  play,  as  originally  written,  was  Old- 
Castle,  which  was  changed,  after  the  play  had  become  pop- 
ular, for  reasons  given  in  the  Introduction  to  "  2  Henry  IV." 
in  the  "  Riverside  "  edition.  The  Prince's  speech  is  a  rem- 
nant of  the  play  in  its  original  form.  In  reference  to  his  name 
Hal  calls  the  fat  knight  "  my  old  lad  of  the  castle."  The 
same  word  in  another  passage  (Titus  Andronicus,  Act  III. 
Sc.  1),  "and  rear'd  aloft  the  bloody  battle-axe,  writing  de- 
struction on  the  enemy's  castle,"  gives  Dr.  Schmidt  another 
opportunity  of  aggressive  error.  He  says  "  the  word  has  un- 
necessarily been  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  casque,  helmet. 
Marcus  says,  each  hand  of  yours  has  been  employed  in  de- 
fending Rome  and  in  assailing  and  destroying  the  strong- 
holds of  enemies."  Dr.  Schmidt  seems  to  have  been  again 
misled  by  the  learned  and  ingenious  editor  of  Walker,  the 
value  of  whose  criticisms  (Mr.  Lettsom's)  is  in  most  cases 
limited  only  by  his  knowledge  of  the  subject  in  hand.  On 
this  passage  he  writes  in  a  note  (Vol.  III.  p.  219)  :  — 

"  Walker  seems  not  to  have  been  aware  that  Theobald  had  conjectured 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  329 

casque.  Grose  says,  "The  castle  was,  perhaps,  a  figurative  name  for  a 
close  head-piece,  deduced  from  its  enclosing  and  defending  the  head,  as  a 
castle  did  the  whole  body;  or  a  corruption  from  the  old  French  word,  cas- 
quttel,  a  small,  light  helmet."  This  dubious  assertion  of  a  modern  writer, 
who  quotes  no  authority  for  his  opinion,  is  the  only  support  yet  discovered 
for  castle  in  the  sense  of  helmet.  Casquetel,  I  suspect,  is  marts  expers. 
Cotgrave  has  only  casque  and  casquet. 

All  this  is  wrong.  Castle  was  the  name  of  a  strong  hel- 
met. In  my  first  edition  I  expressed  a  doubt  as  to  the 
etymology  Casquetel  ("a  small,  light  helmet ")  would  not 
do) ;  but  there  and  in  the  "  Riverside  Shakespeare  "  I  gave 
the  definition  "•  helmet,"  having  in  mind  passages  like  the 
following,  of  which  I  remember  several,  but  of  which  only 
this  conclusive  one  comes  readily  to  my  hand.  It  is  from 
Sir  Thomas  Mallory's  "  King  Arthur,"  and  the  date  of  it, 
1470  (first  printed  in  1485),  relieves  it  from  the  reproach  of 
modernness,  while  the  chivalric  subject  of  the  book  makes 
it  authoritative. 

Doe  thou  thy  best,  said  Sir  Gawaine,  therefore  hie  thee  fast  that  thou 
wert  gone,  and  wit  thou  well  we  shall  soone  come  after,  and  breake  the 
strongest  castle  that  thou  hast  upon  thy  head. 

King  Arthur,  ed.  Wright,  III.  304. 

This  also  renders  nugatory  the  assertion  in  the  Lexicon 
that  in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida"  (Act  V.  Sc.  2),  "  stand  fast 
and  wear  a  castle  on  thy  head,"  castle  is  "  used  as  the  em- 
blem of  security."  Shakespeare  uses  Mallory's  very  words. 

Clear-stories.  It  will  hardly  be  believed  that  a  sane  and 
learned  man,  undertaking  to  explain  Shakespeare's  language, 
refuses  to  accept  this  word  with  its  well-known  architectural 
meaning,  in  the  Clown's  speech  to  Malvolio,  who  is  shut  up 
in  the  dark  (Twelfth  Night,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2),  because  Feste 
says  the  clear-stories  are  lustrous  as  ebony,  and  "  the  poet 
would  not  speak  of  windows  lustrous  as  ebony."  Nay  verily  ; 
indeed  he  would  not ;  nor  of  "  windows  transparent  as  bar- 
ricadoes,"  nor  of  clear-stories  "  toward  the  south-north." 
But  the  Clown  might,  and  does. 

Consummation,  in  Hamlet's  "'tis  a  consummation  de- 
voutly to  be  wished,"  is  glossed  as  meaning  "  end,  death  ;  " 
an  error  of  a  sort  common  in  the  Lexicon.  Here  "  consum- 


330  STUDIES   IN    SHAKKSI'EARE. 

mation "  does  not  mean  "  death,"  nor  anything  like  it. 
What  Hamlet  says  is  that  death  is  a  consummation  (a  com- 
pletion) to  be  wished. 

Colours.  "  Fear  no  colours."  Neither  Mr.  Dyce  nor  Dr. 
Schmidt  does  more  than  to  repeat  Nares's  gloss  that  this  is 
probably  a  proverbial  phrase,  meaning  "  to  fear  no  enemy ; " 
and,  according  to  my  observation,  the  illustrative  passages 
cited  by  editors  merely  repeat  the  phrase  without  giving  any 
limit  of  its  meaning.  To  take  that  out  of  the  category  of 
probability,  I  therefore  quote  the  following  passage  from 
a  contemporary  writer :  — 

To  which  I  answer  that  these  forusdtes  [brawlers]  which  haunt  the  pas- 
sages and  highways  are  not  worthy  to  be  named  the  same  day  with  those 
good  fellowes  who  brave  it  out  in  other  places;  for  they /care  no  colours, 
but  adventure  to  set  upon  thrice  as  many  as  themselves  ;  whereas  these 
faint-heated  foruscites  (us  I  was  then  informed)  never  set  upon  any  (by 
their  good  wills)  except  they  be  two  to  one  at  the  least. 

World  of  Wonders  (1607),  p.  146. 

Cresset  was  not  "  a  fire  made  in  a  high  place  or  suspended 
in  the  air."  It  was  not  a  fire  at  all.  It  was  the  basket 
made  of  wire  or  iron-hoops  in  which  the  fire  was  made. 

Crestless  does  not  mean  "not  dignified  with  coat  ar- 
mour ; "  but  simply  "  without  a  crest."  Many  coats  of  arms, 
of  antiquity  and  honor,  were,  and  some  still  are,  without 
crests. 

Curfew  was  not  "  a  signal  to  retire  to  rest,"  but  a  signal 
to  extinguish  fires,  as  every  intelligent  reader  knows,  and  as 
the  word  itself  shows.  Its  history  is  well-known.  It  was 
at  first  rung  at  seven  o'clock,  then  at  eight,  then  at  nine,  as 
in  New  England  until  lately. 

Apropos  of  the  singular  use  of  curfew  in  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet"  (Act  IV.  Sc,  4),— 

The  curfew  bell  hath  rung,  't  is  three  o'clock, 

which  editors  (myself  included)  have  supposed  to  be  a  slip 
for  the  "  matin  bell,"  I  find  the  following  remarkable  pas- 
sage in  "  Frank  Farleigh,"  a  novel  written  apparently  in  the 
early  part  of  this  century.  A  party  of  young  "  bloods  " 
going  home,  flown  with  wine,  about  three  in  the  morning^ 
see  a  man  entering  the  church  with  a  lantern. 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  331 

"That's  the  sexton  and  bell-ringer,"  returned  Coleman:  " they  keep 
up  the  old  custom  at  Uillingford  of  ringing  the  curfew  at  daybreak:  and 
he 's  going  about  it  now,  I  suppose."  Chap.  15. 

And  again  in  the  same  boisterous  scene  :  — 

This  gentleman  has  been  sent  down  here  by  the  venerable  Society  of 
Antiquaries  to  ascertain  whether  the  old  custom  of  ringing  the  curj'eiv  is 
properly  performed  here. 

This  seems  to  me  the  more  noteworthy  because  I  find  in 
the  same  book  the  very  uncommon  word  whittle  twice  used 
for  shawl,  in  the  most  matter-of-course  way ;  hwitel  being 
the  Anglo-Saxon  for  a  white  mantle  or  overdress  of  a  woman 
or  a  priest. 

Day  woman,  "  a  woman  hired  by  the  day,  a  chairwoman." 
This  is  amazing.  The  daywoman  is  the  dairy-woman. 
Here  day  is  not  an  abbreviation  of  dairy,  but  is  the  old 
Middle  English  daye,  a  dairy-maid.  Dr.  Schmidt's  "  chair- 
woman," too,  is  unknown  in  English.  A  charwoman  is  a 
woman  who  does  chares  or  chores. 

Dr.  Schmidt  characterizes  "  nothing  but  death  shall  e'er 
divorce  my  dignities  "  as  a  "  singular  passage,"  in  its  use  of 
divorce.  What  is  there  singular  about  it  ?  Nothing  could 
be  simpler  or  more  natural.  I  remark  upon  this  only  to 
make  it  the  occasion  of  saying  that  many  passages  are  thus 
misrepresented. 

Do  de  is  not  an  "  inarticulate  sound  uttered  by  a  person 
shivering  with  cold."  It  is  very  distinctly  articulate ;  and 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  cold.  It  is  merely  senseless  gib- 
berish, uttered  by  Edgar  in  his  character  of  a  mad  beggar. 
Probably  Shakespeare  had  heard  it  from  some  poor  bed- 
lamite. 

Dote,  "  to  act  or  speak  irrationally."  Not  so,  as  every 
one  knows.  Doting  has  nothing  to  do  with  acting  or  speak- 
ing. It  is  a  mere  condition  of  the  mind.  A  dumb  man 
may  dote  ;  a  palsied  man  often  dotes. 

Double-henned,  —  "  now  my  double-henn'd  sparrow ;  per- 
haps =  sparrow  with  a  double  hen,  i.  e.  with  a  female  mar- 
ried to  two  cocks,  and  hence  false  to  both."  It  might  be 


332  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

supposed,  from  his  name,  that  Dr.  Schmidt  was  a  German ; 
but  very  plainly  he  is  an  Irishman. 

Dowle.  The  Lexicon,  in  glossing  this  word  (in  Ariel's 
"  one  dowle  that 's  in  my  plume  ")  as  "  fibre  of  down  in  a 
feather,"  is  open  to  no  criticism  to  which  every  modern 
editor  of  Shakespeare  has  not  exposed  himself.  But  I  am 
now  satisfied  that  for  dowle  we  should  read  down,  of  which 
the  former  was  merely  the  contraction  of  a  variant  spelling, 
—  dowlne.  This  I  found  recently  on  referring  hastily  to 
"  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew  :  "  — 

As  chaste  as  Phebe  in  her  summer  sports, 

As  soft  and  tender  as  the  azure  dowlne 

That  circles  Citherea's  silver  doves. 

P.  191,  ed.  Nicholls. 

On  examining  the  folio  of  1623,  in  the  few  passages  in  which 
down  is  used,  I  found  these  two  instances  in  one  passage :  — 

By  his  Gates  of  breath, 

There  Ives  a  dowlney  feather,  which  stirres  not: 
Did  he  suspire,  that  light  and  weightlesse  dowlne 
Perforce  must  move. 

2  Henry  IV.,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

It  is  clear  that  in  these  passages,  as  well  as  in  that  from 
"The  Taming  of  a  Shrew,"  dowlne  =  merely  down;  and 
that  dowle  is  a  mere  variant  spelling  of  dowlne  would  be 
clear  even  without  the  evidence  of  the  following  passage 
from  an  Eclogue  by  John  Davies  :  — 

What  though  time  yet  hannot  bedowld  thy  chin. 

Apud  Dyce. 

The  lexicographers  have  been  misled  as  to  this  word  like  the 
rest  of  us.  All  their  examples  make  against  there  being  a 
distinct  word  dowle  meaning  a  fibre  of  down.  The  three 
forms  were  manifestly  one  word  with  identical  meaning ; 
and  in  dowlne  the  I  was  silent,  we  may  be  sure.1 

Entitled.  Upon  the  use  of  this  word  in  the  following 
passage  (XXXVIIth  Sonnet),  as  it  is  misprinted  in  the 

quarto :  — 

For  whether  beauty,  birth,  or  wealth,  or  wit, 

Or  any  of  these  all,  or  all,  or  more 

Intitled  in  their  [thy]  parts  do  crowned  sit ;  — 

l  As  to  such  silent  letters  see  Everyday  English,  pp.  244  ff. 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  333 

Dr.  Schmidt,  who  retains  the  misprint,  remarks  that  the 
last  clause  means  "  or  more  excellencies,  having  a  just  claim 
to  the  first  place  as  their  due  ;  "  to  which  lucid  explanation 
he  adds,  "  Blundering  modern  editors,  '  entitled  in  thy 
parts.'  "  Now  as  this  "  nice  derangement  of  epitaphs  "  is 
one  to  which  our  Lexicon-maker  not  infrequently  treats 
those  from  whom  he  differs,  I  shall  merely  remark  here 
that  among  the  "  blundering  modern  editors  "  are  Malone, 
Capell,  Collier,  Knight,  Halliwell,  Furness,  Rolfe,  Dyce,  and 
even  the  Cambridge  editors  ; l  indeed,  every  editor  of  dis- 
tinction whose  mother-tongue  was  Shakespeare's.  This 
emendation,  which  is  one  of  the  obvious  sort,  is  to  be  made 
without  discussion  or  remark. 

Entreatment.     In  this  passage  of  Polonius's  counsel  to 
Ophelia,  — 

Set  your  entreatments  at  a  higher  rate 

Than  a  command  to  parley, 

we  have  the  astonishing  gloss  of  entreatment,  "  the  invita- 
tions which  you  receive."  Set  invitations  received  at  a  higher 
rate,  etc. !  That  is  just  what  the  word  cannot  mean.  It 
may  be  loosely  used  in  the  sense  of  "  yielding  to  entreaty ; " 
but  I  am  rather  inclined  to  think,  with  Caldecott  and  Dyce, 
that  it  means  "  entertainments."  One  or  the  other  certainly. 
Eternal.  Of  this  word,  the  Lexicon,  following  Walker, 
gives  in  three  important  passages  the  explanation  that  it  is 
"  used  to  express  extreme  abhorrence."  The  passages 
are  :  — 

There  was  a  Brntus  once  that  would  have  brook'd 
The  eternal  devil  to  keep  his  state  in  Rome,  etc. 

Julius  Caesar,  Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

Some  eternal  villain, 
Some  busy  and  insinuating  rogue. 

Othello,  Act  IV.  Sc.  2. 

O  proud  Death, 
What  feast  is  toward  in  thine  eternal  cell, 

1  I  say  even  the  Cambridge  editors,  because  the  text  of  that  edition  was 
formed  upon  the  principle  that  no  old  reading  was  to  be  changed  if  it  gave 
a  sense;  and  that  if  it  did  not,  it  was  still  to  be  retained  unless  a  single  in- 
disputable emendation  had  been  discovered. 


334  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

That  thou  so  many  princes  at  a  shot 
So  bloodily  hast  struck! 

Hamlet,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 

Mr.  Walker,  who  was  the  first  to  comment  upon  this 
word,  has  misled  Dr.  Schmidt,  and  it  would  seem  some 
others.  Mr.  Dyce  leaves  it  discreetly  alone.  But  in  these 
passages,  and  in  corresponding  use  elsewhere,  as  in  "  eter- 
nal villain,"  which  he  quotes  from  Allan  Cunningham,  and 
"  the  Yankee  tarnal,"  to  which  he  refers,  eternal  is  not 
used,  either  by  intention  or  by  mistake,  for  infernal,  which  is 
Mr.  Walker's  assumption.  The  passages  above  do  indeed 
invite  such  an  explanation :  "  infernal  devil,"  "  infernal 
villain,"  "  infernal  cell,"  would  occur  to  the  most  superficial 
glossologist.  But  the  word  was  not  so  used  or  misused  ;  of 
which  here  is  evidence,  from  a  contemporary  Shakespearean 
publication.  The  propitiatory  address  to  the  reader  in  the 
ante-natal  edition  of  "  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  1609,  begins 
"  Eternall  reader,  you  have  here  a  new  play,  never  stal'd 
with  the  stage,"  etc.  I  remember  other  like  instances,  but 
have  not  time  to  look  them  up ;  nor  is  there  any  need ;  one 
such  example  is  as  good  as  forty.  Manifestly,  this  writer 
did  not  intend  to  open  his  address  in  favor  of  his  new  play 
by  "  expressing  extreme  abhorrence  "  of  his  reader,  with 
Dr.  Schmidt,  or  by  calling  him  "  infernal  reader,"  with 
Mr.  Walker.  And  yet  the  word  is  used  just  as  it  is  in  the 
passages  quoted  above  from  Shakespeare,  and  as  the  rustic 
Yankee  uses  it  in  "  tarnal.'"  In  all  these  cases  the  word  is 
used  merely  as  an  expletive  of  excess.  It  means  simply 
boundless,  immeasurable,  and  corresponds  very  nearly  in 
its  purport  to  the  word  egregious,  as  it  is  used  by  some  of 
our  elder  writers,  and  nowadays  in  Spanish,  egregio  autore. 
It  is  a  mere  far.on  de  parler,  like  awful,  which,  in  much 
the  same  sense,  is  now  heard  constantly,  and  found  in  all 
books  of  the  present  day  except  those  of  a  serious  charac- 
ter. When  a  rustic  Yankee  says  that  a  girl  is  "  tarnal 
hansome,"  he  does  not  mean  that  she  is  at  all  infernal,  nor  to 
express  extreme  abhorrence  of  her,  any  more  than  a  young 
swell  who  calls  his  favorite  an  "  awfully  jolly  girl "  means 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  335 

that  she  inspires  him  with  awe,  or  than  another  sort  of  man 
who  calls  his  enslaver  "  a  dayvlish  fine  woman  "  means  that 
she  is  at  all  like  the  Fiend,  although  he  might  perhaps  safely 
venture  that  assertion.  In  Cassius's  "  eternal  devil,"  Emi- 
lia's "  eternal  villain,"  Fortinbras's  "  eternal  cell,"  and  the 
"  eternal  reader  "  of  the  address  in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida" 
the  epithet  is  one  merely  of  hyperbolical  distinction. 

Eysel :  upon  Hamlet's  demand  to  Laertes  (Act  V.  Sc.  2)r 

Woo  't  drink  up  eisel,  eat  a  crocodile? 

Dr.  Schmidt  thus  delivers  himself :  "  Hamlet's  questions 
are  apparently  ludicrous,  and  drinking  vinegar  in  order  to 
exhibit  grief  by  a  wry  face  [!  !]  seems  much  more  to  the  pur- 
pose than  drinking  up  rivers.  As  for  the  crocodile,  it  must 
perhaps  be  remembered  that  it  is  a  mournful  animal."  After 
reading  a  comment  like  that,  one  is  inclined  to  say  with 
Lear,  "  my  brain  begins  to  turn."  Apparently  ludicrous  ! 
Hamlet  was  unfortunately  never  quite  so  earnest  nor  so  sin- 
gle-minded as  at  this  moment.  He  was  simply  in  a  frenzy, 
raving.  His  lips  brought  forth  monsters.  As  to  the  mourn- 
f illness  of  the  crocodile,  that  is,  as  the  ladies  say,  "  too  funny 
for  anything !  "  If  Shakespeare  had  known  of  any  animal 
bigger,  more  terrible,  and  more  loathsome  than  the  croco- 
dile, we  should  have  had  that  —  if  its  name  would  have  run 
easily  into  his  verse. 

Fencer  does  not  mean  "  a  master  of  fence,  one  who 
teaches  the  art  of  using  the  sword,"  any  more  than  fiddler 
means  "  a  professor  of  the  violin."  It  means  merely  "  one 
who  fences,  with  whom  fencing  is  a  habit." 

Fetch.  When  Don  Pedro  (Much  Ado  about  Noth- 
ing, Act  I.  Sc.  2)  praises  Hero,  Claudio  replies,  "  You 
speak  this  to  fetch  me  in,  my  lord,"  where  Dr.  Schmidt  tells 
us  that  "  fetch  me  "  means  "  to  take  in,  dupe."  Not  so  at 
all.  Don  Pedro  was  not  taking  in  or  duping  his  young  offi- 
cer. What  occasion  had  he  to  do  so  ?  Claudio  means,  as 
we  all  apprehend  without  conscious  thought,  that  his  supe- 
rior designs,  by  a  gracious  compliment  to  his  mistress,  to 
draw  him  out  of  the  slightly  antagonistic  attitude  into  which 
he  has  been  driven  by  the  gibes  of  Benedick. 


336  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

Frame.  Leonato  (Much  Ado,  Act  IV.  Sc.  1),  referring 
to  his  regret  that  he  had  but  one  child,  says,  — 

Chid  I  for  that  at  frugal  nature's  frame  ? 

and  here  Dr.  Schmidt  would  have  frame  =  "  mould  for 
castings  "  (i.  e.,  here,  womb),  with  the  extended  gloss, ."  did 
I  grumble  against  the  niggardness  of  nature's  casting 
mould?"  A  most  elaborate  misapprehension.  Nature's 
frame  is  merely  nature's  order,  disposal  of  matter ;  as  in 
"  God  framed  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 

Alas,  that  but  on[e]  breast  Dame  Nature  did  me  frame! 

Seneca,  1581,  f.  191  b. 
Who  can  his  Nature's  frame 
Forsake,  or  cross  the  dictates  of  the  same  ? 

J.  Quarles'  Triumphant  Chastity,  1684,  p.  86. 

Full.  In  the  same  play,  when  Beatrice  retorts  sharply 
upon  Benedick,  Don  Pedro  says,  "  You  have  it  full,  Bene- 
dick," which,  according  to  Dr.  Schmidt,  means,  "  You  are 
the  man,  you  will  do  ;  "  and  he  refers  (vainly)  to  another 
use  of  full  for  support  of  this  astonishing  misinterpreta- 
tion. Don  Pedro  merely  says,  "  You  have  all  you  want,  all 
you  can  carry."  Here  have  it  is  used  as  habet  was  in  the 
Roman  amphitheatre.  I  see,  by  the  way,  that  upon  this  and 
the  previous  word  Mr.  Rolfe,  in  his  excellent  edition  of 
"  Much  Ado,"  quotes  what  "  Schmidt  says,"  and  tells  us 
"  Schmidt  explains,"  etc.  I  cannot  but  think  that  that  dis- 
criminating editor  was  misled  by  the  imposing  form  and  the 
easy-of-reference  shape  of  the  Lexicon.  What  need  has 
Mr.  Rolfe,  or  Dr.  Furness,  or  Aldis  Wright  to  go  to  Dr. 
Schmidt,  or  to  any  German,  however  learned,  about  the 
meaning  of  an  English  phrase  ?  But  even  Skeat  refers  to 
the  Shakespeare  Lexicon.  If  a  man  will  only  put  all  he 
knows,  or  does  not  know,  and  in  alphabetical  order,  so  that 
it  may  be  easy  of  reference,  it  will  surely  attain  a  certain 
vogue,  and  be  referred  to  as  "  authority  "  with  little  discrim- 
ination of  its  real  worth. 

Gorbellied.  This  word  (1  Henry  IV.,  Act  II.  Sc.  2)  is 
glossed  both  by  Dyce  and  the  Lexicon  as  meaning  "  swag- 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  337 

bellied,  having  a  great  paunch ; "  not  quite  correctly  ;  al- 
though gorbellies  are  likely  to  have  great  paunches.  See  :  — 

Or  els  for  some  notable  apparaunt  marke  on  ones  face,  or  his  bodie 
they  [the  Greeks]  have  called  him  Phiscon  or  Grypos:  as  ye  would  saye 
gorbelley  and  hooke  nosed.  North's  Plutarch,  p.  242,  ed.  1570. 

Now  <f>v<TKr)  =  botulus,  a  sausage,  or  (meton.)  a  belly 
stuffed  with  dainties.  "  Gorbelly "  means,  therefore,  "a 
glutton  or  gourmand."  Thus  :  — 

For  some  may  say  that  it  is  not  unlikely  that  Chanons,  Priors,  Ab- 
botts, and  other  Pope's  gross  gorbellies  should  make  good  cheer. 

World  of  Wonders  (1607),  p.  181. 

And  so  Falstaff  in  the  next  breath  called  his  victims  "  fat 
chuffs,"  which  latter  word  means,  not  as  the  Lexicon  has  it, 
"  a  dull  fellow  who  is  well  off  but  does  not  know  how  to  en- 
joy his  wealth,"  but  "a  Dives,  a  glutton,  one  who  fares 
sumptuously  every  day." 

Galenus  affirmeth  that  the  great  chuffes,  whose  lyfe  and  occupation  is 
feeding,  never  ly ve  longe,  nor  be  helthf ul,  and  theyr  mindes  be  soo  wrapped 
wvthe  over  mot-he  blood  and  fatness,  even  as  it  were  with  myer,  that  they 
have  no  maner  heuenly  meditation,  but  doalwayes  thynke  uppon  eatynge, 
drynkynge,  etc.,  etc.  De  Morbo  Gallico,  1539,  sig.  G,  v. 

Gossip  does  mean  primarily  "  a  sponsor  at  baptism."  But 
Launce,  when  he  says  his  Dulcinea  is  "  not  a  maid,  for  she 
hath  had  gossips,"  does  not  mean  that  these  gossips  were 
"  sponsors  for  a  child  of  hers,"  which  the  Lexicon  says  he 
does.  Far  from  it.  He  means  that  she  has  had  gossiping 
companions,  and  then,  in  his  whimsical,  perversely-jesting 
mood,  he  assumes  that  these  are  such  as  come  around  a 
woman  in  child-bed,  and  that  therefore  she  cannot  be  a 
maid. 

Gyves  means,  as  every  one  knows,  fetters  for  the  ankles 
that  hamper  movement ;  but,  nevertheless,  Hamlet's 

Would,  like  the  spring  that  turneth  wood  to  stone, 
Convert  his  gvves  to  graces, 

Act  IV.  Sc.  7. 

is  made  conspicuous  among  those  passages  as  to  which  Dr. 
Schmidt  goes  near  to  astounding  us  by  his  capacity  of  inap- 
22 


338  STUDIES   IN    SHAKESPEARE. 

prehension.  He  says,  "  an  obscure  passage,  not  yet  ex- 
plained or  amended."  Neither  amendment  nor  explanation 
is  required.  Shakespeare  never  wrote  more  clearly.  The 
comparison  is  merely  of  the  great  change  in  both  instances ; 
not  of  gyves  to  wood  and  graces  to  stone. 

Hand  in  hand,  in  "  as  fair  and  as  good,  a  kind  of  hand 
in  hand  comparison"  means  not  "playing  from  one  hand 
into  the  other,  confounding  two  different  things,  handy 
dandy  juggling ; "  but,  as  every  one  knows,  simply  "  com- 
parisoned,  coupled,  like  two  friends  going  hand  in  hand." 

The  Lexicon  frequently  misleads,  as  we  have  seen,  by 
giving  glosses  which  do  indeed  present  a  sense,  but  a  sense 
which  cannot  be  accepted  by  an  intelligent  English  reader, 
and  moreover  one  which  runs  beside  the  real  meaning,  but 
on  a  different  line  of  thought.  Such  is  the  saying  that  head, 
in  Othello's  "  the  very  head  and  front  of  my  offending," 
means  "  the  top,  the  summit,"  with  the  added  gloss,  "  this 
is  its  height,  as  it  were,  and  breadth."  Not  so,  surely.  The 
phrase  is  so  plain  and  yet  so  idiomatic  that  it  hardly  admits 
explanation.  When  Othello  says  "  the  very  head  and  front 
of  my  offending,"  he  has  no  reference  to  the  height  of  his 
offence ;  he  means  "  this  and  nothing  more  is  what  con- 
fronts you  in  my  conduct."  Nor  does  head,  in  "  this  gallant 
head  of  war,"  mean  "  armed  force,"  any  more  than  it  does 
in  "  made  head  against  my  power."  "  To  make  head  "  is 
"  to  be  able  to  present  a  front,  and  to  move  onward."  To 
this,  an  armed  force  may  in  many  cases  be  necessary,  but 
head  does  not  therefore  mean  "  an  armed  force,"  even  in 
Shakespeare's  use  of  it.  Dr.  Schmidt  falls  into  the  common 
error,  here  and  elsewhere,  of  mistaking  condition,  accom- 
paniment, or  result,  for  meaning. 

Heat.  In  "Twelfth  Night"  (Act  I.  Sc.  1),  the  Duke's 
messenger  tells  him  of  Olivia,  that 

The  element  itself,  till  seven  }*ears'  heat, 
Shall  not  behold  her  face. 

That  is,  the  very  air  shall  not  see  her  until  seven  summers 
have  passed.  But  Dr.  Schmidt  will  have  heat  here  mean 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  839 

as  "  at  a  race."  This  first  heat,  and  second 
heat,  and  so  forth,  of  the  years  in  their  race,  surpasses 
Johnson's  "  panting  Time  toiled  after  him  in  vain." 

Hob,  "  a  frequent  name  among  the  common  people." 
Yes  ;  but  so  is  "  Diggory."  This  tells  us  nothing  that  a 
Lexicon  should  tell.  Hob  is  a  vulgar  contraction  of  "  Rob- 
ert," thus,  Robert,  Robin,  Rob,  Bob,  Hob. 

Hole.  The  Lexicon  is  very  amusing  upon  this  word. 
Hortensio,  in  "  Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  pretending  to  be  a 
music-master,  says  that  his  instrument,  a  lute,  is  in  tune : 
Bianca  tells  him  "  the  treble  jars  ; "  whereupon  his  rival, 
Lucentio,  says,  "  Spit  in  the  hole,  man,  and  tune  again." 
Here  the  Lexicon  defines  hole  as  "  the  hollow  of  the  hand," 
with  the  full  and  expounded  paraphrase  "  spit  in  your  hand, 
take  courage,  and  make  a  new  effort."  It  seems  almost 
trifling  to  say  that  what  he  was  told  to  do  was  to  spit  in  the 
peg-hole  in  the  neck  of  the  instrument,  so  that  the  peg  would 
hold  when  he  screwed  up  the  string.  Moreover,  even  in 
Shakespeare's  time,  gentlemen  did  not  spit  into  their  hands 
in  the  presence  of  ladies,  if  at  all. 

Land-damn.  Whether  this  word,  in  "  The  Winter's 
Tale  "  (Act  II.  Sc.  1),  "  Would  I  knew  the  villain  !  I  would 
land-damn  him  "  is  a  sound  reading  or  not,  no  one  can  meet 
with  gravity  Dr.  Schmidt's  suggestion.  "  Perhaps  we  ought 
to  read,  « would  I  knew  the  villain  !  I  would  —  Lord,  damn 
him !  '  When  Dr.  Schmidt  meanders  into  the  maze  of  con- 
jectural criticism,  —  well,  there  he  is.  We  shall  next  be  in- 
debted to  him  for  discovering  that  lago  should  say,  not,  "  O 
my  lord,  beware  of  jealousy,"  but,  "  O  my  !  —  Lord  !  —  Be- 
ware of  jealousy." 

Mien  Dr.  Schmidt  pronounces  "  a  word  unknown  to 
Shakespeare,  but  inserted  by  inexpert  conjecturers  "  in  two 
passages  (for  mine)  ;  and  again  he  says  "  some  modern  edi- 
tors, quite  preposterously."  It  seems  to  me  that  for  Dr. 
Schmidt  to  speak  thus  of  English  editors  like  Theobald,  Stee- 
vens,  Malone,  Chalmers,  and  Knight  is  both  unbecoming 
and  unwise. 


340  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Mose  in  the  chine  has  been  defined  simply  as  "  a  disease 
in  horses,"  which  gloss  the  Lexicon  merely  adopts.  But  the 
proper  reading  is  "  mourn  in  the  chine,"  which  will  be  found 
in  the  "  Riverside  "  Shakespeare,  with  this  confirmatory  ex- 
ample :  "In  our  abbey  we  never  study,  for  fear  of  the 
mumps,  which  disease  in  horses  is  called  mourning  in  the 
chine."  Urquhart's  "  Rabelais  "  (1653),  Book  I.  c.  59.  And 
Cotgrave's  Fr.  and  Eng.  Die.  (1611)  has  "  Les  Oreillons. 
The  mumpes,  or  mourning  of  the  chine." 

My.  If  Dr.  Schmidt  were  English,  I  am  persuaded  that 
he  would  not  have  said  that  my  is  "  superfluous  "  in  such 
phrases  as  "  I  am  one  that  is  nourished  by  my  victuals." 
There  is  a  shade  of  meaning  which  is  lost  without  the  pro- 
noun, as  every  English-speaking  person  knows.  And  in  the 
last  of  the  examples  which  he  cites,  "  as  full  of  quarrel  as 
my  young  mistress's  dog,"  the  suppression  of  the  pronoun 
would  produce  almost  absolute  nonsense. 

Nay  does  not  mean  "a worthless  horse,"  but,  first,  "a 
small  horse,"  and  then,  "  a  family,  every-day  horse."  In 
every  one  of  the  three  instances  in  which  Shakespeare  uses 
the  word,  "  shuffling  nag/'  "  Galloway  nags,"  "  ribaldred 
nag,"  the  depreciatory  part  of  the  expression  is  in  the  epi- 
thet prefixed,  not  in  nag.  This  misapprehension  is  of  a 
sort  which  is  not  peculiar  to  the  compiler  of  the  Lexicon, 
who,  however,  presents  us  with  many  instances  of  it. 

Napping,  in  the  phrase  "  to  take  napping,"  does  not 
mean  "  to  take  or  surprise  in  the  very  act,  in  committing  an 
offence.""  It  means  simply  "  to  take  off  guard." 

Native,  we  are  told,  is  to  be  accepted  in  Coriolanus's 
speech,  — 

The  accusation 

Which  they  have  often  made  against  the  senate, 
All  cause  unborn,  could  never  be  the  native 
Of  our  so  frank  donation,  — 

Act  III.  Sc.  1. 

as  meaning  "  national  origin,  source."  This  is  sheer  non- 
sense. "  Some  modern  editors,"  Dr.  Schmidt  adds,  [read] 
"  motive."  Some  !  The  "  some  "  includes  Johnson,  Singer, 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  341 

Chalmers,  Halliwell,  Dyce,  Aldis  Wright,  and  Rolfe  ;  in  fact, 
every  editor  of  any  reputation.  Native  has  no  proper 
place  in  the  text,  nor,  as  to  this  passage,  in  any  Shakespeare 
Lexicon.  This  is  one  of  the  multitudinous  examples  of  the 
inapprehensiveness  as  to  Shakespeare  of  this  accomplished 
and  erudite  grammarian. 

Ne.  In  like  manner  he  tells  us  that  this  word  in  Helena's 
speech,  as  printed  in  the  folio  (All 's  Well,  Act  I.  Sc.  2),  "  ne 
worse  of  worst  extended,"  has  been  "  differently  and  very 
unhappily  corrected."  He  does  not  see  that  ne  is  a  pho- 
netic misprint  of  nay.  Even  the  Cambridge  edition  has  nay. 

New-fangled  does  not  mean  "  given  to  foppish  love  of 
fashionable  finery."  It  does  not  mean  "  given  to  "  anything 
nor  "  love  of  "  anything  ;  and,  moreover,  that  which  is  fash- 
ionable may  not  be  new-fangled.  The  phrase  applies  to 
things,  not  to  persons.  A  dress  may  be  new-fangled,  or  a 
fashion.  A  foppish  person  is  likely  to  take  to  a  new  fan- 
gle,  to  new-fangled  finery  or  fashion.  In  every  case  in 
which  Shakespeare  uses  the  word  it  has  this  meaning. 

Noseless  does  not  mean  "having  one's  nose  cut  off;  "  for 
verily  it  may  be  knocked  off,  or  wrung  off,  or  shot  off,  or 
pulled  off,  or  bitten  off,  or  even  blown  off.  Noseless  means 
merely  "  without  a  nose." 

O'ergalled,  in  "their  eyes  o'ergalled  with  recourse  of 
tears,"  is  strangely  glossed  as  "  too  much  injured  and  worn 
away."  O'ergalled  means,  not  "  worn  away,"  but  simply 
"  much  inflamed,  irritated,  galled,"  by  what  are  called  "  briny 
tears."  So  Hamlet,  speaking  of  his  mother's  brief  mourning, 

says :  — 

Ere  yet  the  salt  of  most  unrighteous  tears 
Had  left  the  flushing  in  her  galled  eyes, 
She  married. 

Act  I.  Sc.  2. 

O'er-perch  cannot  mean  "to  fly  over  ;  "  as  "  perch  "  does 
not  mean  "fly."  In  the  only  passage  in  which  Shake- 
speare uses  it,  Romeo's  "  with  love's  light  wings  I  did  o'er- 
perch  these  walls,"  it  is  a  picturesque  word,  showing  us  the 
young  lover  touching  for  an  instant  the  top  of  the  wall  as 
he  surmounted  it. 


342  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

Offal  is  correctly  defined  as  "  waste  meat,  the  parts  of  a 
butchered  animal  unfit  for  use."  But  most  incorrectly  we 
are  told  that  when  Hamlet  says,  "  I  should  have  fatted  all 
the  region-kites  with  this  slave's  offal,"  he  means,  "with 
this  slave,  who  is  no  more  worth  than  offal."  There  is  no 
comparison  of  Claudius  to  offal.  Hamlet  says  plainly  that 
he  should  have  given  his  uncle's  carcass  to  the  kites,  that  he 
should  have  butchered  him  and  given  his  entrails  to  the 
birds  of  prey.  Every  intelligent  English  reader  knows  this. 

One,  we  are  told,  was  "  probably  sometimes  pronounced 
on"  Not  so.  One  was  pronounced  with  the  pure  o  sound, 
to  rhyme  with  throne.  Dr.  Schmidt  was  assisted  by  Walker, 
to  whom  he  refers.  All  that  Walker's  examples  go  to  prove 
is  that  one  was  not  pronounced  wun,  which  is  true  enough, 
with  some  small  provincial  exceptions.  Dr.  Schmidt  might 
have  found  this  set  forth  in  the  "  Memorandums  of  English 
Pronunciation  in  the  Elizabethan  Era,"  in  my  first  edition.1 

Ooze  does  not  mean  "  to  flow  gently  "  nor  to  "  flow  "  at 
all.  A  stream  that  flows  gently  does  not  ooze.  To  ooze  is 
to  issue  slowly  and  imperceptibly.  The  idea  of  issuing  is 
essential. 

Organ-pipe.  Under  this  word  we  find  another  example 
of  those  amazing  evidences  of  incapacity  of  poetical  appre- 
hension in  a  critic  of  Shakespeare's  language  which  have 
been  before  remarked  upon.  In  "  The  Tempest  "  (Act  III. 
Sc.  3) ,  Alonzo  says  :  — 

O,  it  is  monstrous,  monstrous ! 
Methought  the  billows  spoke  and  told  me  of  it; 
The  winds  did  sing  it  to  me ;  and  the  thunder, 
That  deep  and  dreadful  organ-pipe,  pronounc'd 
The  name  of  Prosper. 

Upon  this  our  critic  gravely  remarks  (the  italic  emphasis  is 
mine),  "  apparently  not  the  pipe  of  a  musical  organ,  which 
would  have  been  unable  to  pronounce  a  name  "  / 

Placket,  "  probably  a  stomacher  (according  to  some,  a 
petticoat,  or  the  opening  in  it)."  Thus  the  Lexicon.  What- 

1  See  the  Note  on  Walker's  Critical  Examination,  p.  368. 


GLOSSARIES   AND  LEXICONS.  343 

ever  the  uncertainty  about  this  feminine  article,  of  all  things 
ever  worn  by  woman,  except  a  shoe  and  a  bonnet,  a  stom- 
acher was  the  one  which  could  not  have  been  called  a  placket. 
That  any  one  at  all  should  say  that  the  opening  in  the  petti- 
coat is  the  placket  would  be  almost  equally  strange,  did  we 
not  know  with  what  absolute  want  of  discriminating  thought 
language  is  used  by  many  persons.  For  the  hole  or  slit  in 
the  petticoat  is  called  by  all  women  of  English  blood,  in 
whatever  part  of  the  world,  and  has,  time  out  of  mind,  been 
called,  the  "  placket-hole."  Every  girl  knows  that  name, 
and  every  man  who  has  been  among  women  familiarly. 
But  to  say  that  the  placket-hole  is  the  placket  is  like  saying 
that  a  ship's  man-hole  is  a  man,  or  that  a  rat-hole  is  a  rat. 
A  rat-hole  is  a  hole  for  a  rat ;  and  the  question  as  to  the 
placket-hole  is :  What  is  the  placket  that  the  hole  is  or  was 
for  ?  There  has  been  much  uncertainty  and  discussion  upon 
this  point,  which  is  of  some  interest  because  of  the  variety 
and  unlikeness  of  the  allusions  to  the  placket  in  our  earlier 
literature.  I  am  able  now  to  show  clearly  what  the  placket 
was,  to  explain  the  allusions  to  it,  and  give  the  history  of  this 
queer  little  word.  A  placket  was  originally  a  pocket.  The 
name  is  derived  from  plack,  which  in  the  north  of  England 
meant  a  small  piece  of  money.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Waverley  novels,  in  the  connection  "  plack  or  bawbee."  This 
word  is  probably  a  form  of  plate  =  a  thin  piece  of  metal ; 
the  t  sound  having  passed  into  k,  according  to  a  well-known 
phonetic  "  law."  Now  of  old  a  pocket  was  not  a  pouch  at- 
tached to  an  article  of  dress,  and  within  it,  but  an  article  by 
itself,  a  small  bag,  or  large  purse,  which  was  tied  about  the 
waist,  or  suspended  from  the  shoulder.  It  was  often  of  old 
worn  outside  the  outer  garment ;  a  fashion  which  has  lately 
been  adopted  by  finely-dressed  women.  The  placket,  how- 
ever, was  worn  not  only  inside  the  dress  (for  safety's  sake 
in  the  days  of  cut-purses),  but  as  remotely  withinside  as  pos- 
sible. In  fact  it  was  tied  about  the  waist,  immediately  over 
the  smock  or  chemise,  and,  hanging  down  in  front  of  the 
wearer's  person,  was  reached  by  her  through  a  hole  in  her 


344  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

outer  garment,  which  was  therefore  called  the  placket-hole. 
Pockets  like  this  (no  longer  called  plackets,  however) 
were  in  use  so  late  as  1835.  They  were  made  of  strong 
muslin,  and  were  tied  with  broad  tape  about  the  waist,  but 
at  that  time  not  next  the  chemise,  but  between  the  upper 
petticoat  and  the  outer  skirt,  that  of  the  gown.  I  remember 
having  seen  such  pockets  in  New  England  and  New  York 
in  my  boyhood,  and  there  must  be  many  other  persons  who 
can  also  remember  them.  It  is  also  much  to  the  purpose 
that  I  have  been  told  by  elderly  ladies  that,  in  their  girl- 
hood, the  placket-hole  was  made  sometimes  in  the  side  of 
the  skirt,  although  it  is  now  generally  at  the  back,  so  that 
mantua-makers  would  ask  whether  the  placket-hole  was  to 
be  mado  at  the  side  or  behind.  This  seems  to  be  the  sur- 
vival of  an  old  fashion  in  vogue  when  there  was  no  side- 
pocket,  with  its  pocket-hole,  in  the  skirt  of  the  gown,  which 
is  a  very  modern  invention. 

Swift,  writing  so  late  as  1727,  has  the  following  passage 
in  which  a  pocket,  or  placket,  of  the  old  fashion  is  referred 
to,  with  his  usual  vividness  and  lack  of  reserve.  A  wait- 
ing-maid is  describing  her  perplexity  consequent  upon  the 
loss  of  some  money. 

Now  you  must  know  that  my  trunk  has  a  very  bad  lock, 

Therefore  all  the  money  I  have,  which  God  knows  is  a  very  small  stock, 

I  keep  in  my  pocket,  tied  about  my  middle,  next  my  smock. 

So  when  I  went  to  put  up  my  purse,  as  God  would  have  it,  my  smock  was 

unript, 

And  without  putting  it  into  my  pocket,  down  it  slipt. 
Then  the  bell  rung,  and  I  went  to  put  my  lady  to  bed. 
And  God  knows  I  thought  my  money  was  as  safe  as  my  maidenhead. 
Mrs.  Harris's  Petition.    Miscellanies,  ed.  1742,  Vol.  IV.  p.  67. 

Here  we  have  a  contemporary  record  of  this  use  of  the 
pocket,  or  placket,  one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  years  ago, 
with  a  description  of  its  intimate  closeness  to  the  wearer's 
body,  and  a  Swift-like  hint  as  to  its  position.  From  this 
position  its  name  came  very  early,  in  loose  times  and  among 
loose  talkers,  to  have  a  meaning  which  may  hereafter  be 
rather  illustrated  than  told.  That  its  proper  meaning  was 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  345 

a  pouch,  or  pocket,  hanging  below  the  waist  and  close  to 
the  body,  is  evident  from  the  following  passages,  in  some  of 
which,  however,  there  is  a  double  allusion,  which  confirms 
both  the  meanings  just  suggested. 

Ralph.  .  .  .  And  he  shall  make  thee  either  a  silken  purse  full  of  gold, 
or  else  a  fine  wrought  smock. 

Edw.    But  how  shall  I  have  the  maid  ? 

Ralph.  Marry,  sirrah,  if  thou  be'st  a  silken  purse  full  of  gold,  then 
on  Sundays  she  '11  hang  thee  by  her  side,  and  you  must  not  say  a  word. 
Now,  sir,  when  she  comes  into  a  great  prease  of  people,  on  a  sudden  she  '11 
swap  thee  into  her  plackerd;  then,  sirrah,  being  there,  you  may  plead 
for  yourself. 

Greene,  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay,  p.  149,  ed.  Dyce. 

Cath.  Marry,  come  out,  you're  so  busy  about  my  petticoat  you'll 
creep  up  to  my  placket,  and  *  ye  could  but  attain  the  honour  ;  but  and  the 
outsides  offend  your  rogueships,  look  o'  the  lining  :  't  is  silk. 

Dale.     Is  't  silk  't  is  lined  with,  then  ? 

Cath.    Silk  V    Ay,  silk,  master  slave  ;  etc. 

Idem,  The  Honest  Whore,  Part  II.  p.  241,  ed.  Dyce. 

Within  this  church  an  image  was  erected 
Which  did  the  Lady  Fortune  represent. 

Within  her  lap  whole  bundles  did  there  lie 
Of  earthly  blessings  and  terrestriall  joyes. 

Then  all  the  blessings  which  her  placket  fill'd 
She  seem'd  to  shake,  and  on  his  head  distill'd. 
Breton's  Pasqnil's  Night  Cap  (1612) ;  in  Poems  on  State  Affairs, 
Vol.  I.  Part  II.  p.  185. 

It  was  inevitable,  however,  that  the  name  of  such  a 
secretly  worn  article  of  female  attire  should  come,  in  early 
days,  when  words  were  used  more  loosely  than  they  are 
now,  to  have  a  wider  meaning  among  careless  speakers ; 
and  as  a  petticoat  is  sometimes  used  for  ivoman,  and  a 
woman  is  sometimes  called  a  petticoat,  so  a  petticoat  came 
to  be  called  a  placket,  and  placket  to  be  used  for  woman. 
This  use  is  illustrated  by  the  following  passages,  which  ex- 
hibit the  word  used  to  mean  a  petticoat,  and  also  in  what 
may  be  called  a  stage  of  transition. 

Is  there  no  manners  left  among  maids  ?  will  they  wear  their  plackets 
Where  they  should  bear  their  faces  V 

The  Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

1  and  =  an  =  if. 


346  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

For  that,  methinks,  is  the  curse  dependant  on  those  that  war  for  a 
placket.  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Act  II.  Sc.  3. 

She  cuckolded  her  husband  with  the  serpent  and  then  pretended  to 
modesty,  and  fell  a  making  placktts  presently. 

Crowne's  Sir  Courtly  Nice,  apud  Dvce. 

The  message  with  hearts  full  of  faith  were  receiv'd, 

And  the  next  news  we  heard  was  Q.[een]  M.[ary]  conceiv'd. 

Pray  heaven  to  strengthen  her  Majesty '$  placket, 
For  if  this  trick  fail,  beware  of  your  jacket. 

The  Miracle  ;  a  Whig  lampoon  on  James  II. 's  Queen  :  in  Poems  on 
State  Affairs,  Vol.  I.  Part  II.  p.  185. 

Grew  so  in  love  with  the  wenches'  song  that  he  would  not  stir  his  petti- 
toes till  he  had  both  the  tune  and  words  ;  which  so  drew  the  rest  of  the 
herd  to  me  that  all  their  senses  stuck  in  ears  :   you  might  have  pinch'd 
a  placket  it  was  senseless  ;  it  was  nothing  to  geld  a  cod-piece  of  a  purse. 
The  Winter's  Tale,  Act  IV.  Sc.  4. 

And  first  degrade  us 

Of  all  our  ancient  chambering  ;  next  that 
The  symbols  of  our  secres}',  silk  stockings 
Hew  off  our  heels  ;  our  petticoats  of  arms 
Tear  off  our  bodies,  and  our  bodkins  break 
Over  our  coward  heads. 

Coun.  And  ever  after, 

To  make  the  tainture  most  notorious, 
At  all  our  crests,1  videlicet,  our  plackets, 
Let  laces  hang,  and  we  return  again 
Unto  our  former  titles,  dairy-maids  ! 

Beau.  &  Fl.,  The  Woman's  Prize,  Act  II.  Sc.  4. 

Her  black  saveguard  is  turn'd  into  a  deep-slop,  the  holes  of  her  upper 
body  to  button-holes,  her  waistcoat  to  a  doublet,  her  placket  to  the  ancient 
seat  of  a  cod-piece,  etc. 

Middleton,  The  Roaring  Girl,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Here  they  did  glance,  and  there  they  did  gloist, 

Here  they  did  simper,  and  there  they  did  slaver, 
Here  was  a  hand  and  there  was  a  placket, 
Whilst,  hey  !   their  sleeves  went  flicket-a-flacket. 

Pills  to  Purge  Melancholy,  Vol.  II.  p.  20. 

Come  listen  a  while  (tho'  the  weather  be  cold 

In  your  pockets  and  plackets  your  hands  you  may  hold) 

Idem,  Vol.  III.  p.  4. 
And  so  he  fell  a  plundering 
The  placket-geer  like  light  and  thundering. 

Wits'  Paraphrase,  p.  14. 

1  The  petticoat  being  the  sign,  token,  or  crest  of  woman. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS. 


347 


Tho'  I  perhaps  had  spar'd  thy  jacket, 
I  should  have  riv'd  the  witch's  l  placket. 

Idem,  Hypsipile  to  Jason,  p.  111. 

The  abbess  of  Quedlingberg  who,  with  the  four  great  dignitaries  of  her 
chapter,  the  prioress,  the  deaness,  the  sub-chantress  and  senior  canoness, 
had  that  week  come  to  Strasburg  to  consult  the  university  upon  a  case  of 
conscience,  relating  to  their  placket-holes. 

Sterne,  Tristram  Shandy,  Chap.  86. 

Was  that  brave  heart  meant  to  pant  for  a  placket  ?  2 
Beau.  &  Fl.,  The  Humorous  Lieutenant,  Act  IV.  Sc.  3. 

Geo.     .  .  .  but  if  you  'd  have  a  petticoat  for  your  lady,  here 's  a  stuff. 

Frank  Jun.  Are  you  another  tailor,  sirrah  V  here 's  a  knave  !  What 
are  you  V 

Geo.  You  are  such  another  gentleman  !  but  for  the  stuff,  sir,  'tis  L. 
SS.  &  K.,  for  the  turn  stript  a  purpose  :  a  yard  and  a  quarter  broad,  too, 
which  is  just  the  depth  of  a  woman's  petticoat.  .  .  .  Then  it  is  likewise 
stript  standing,  between  which  is  discovered  the  open  part,  which  is  now 
called  the  placket.* 

Frank  Jun.    Why,  was  it  ever  called  otherwise  V 

Geo.  Yes,  while  the  word  remained  pure  in  his  original,  the  Latin 
tongue,  who  have  no  K's,  it  was  called  the  placet ;  a  placendo,  a  thing  or 
place  to  please. 

Middleton,  Any  Thing  for  a  Quiet  Life,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

Already  we  have  approached  the  last  sense  which  the 
word  came  to  have,  and  which  caused  it  to  be  used  by  play- 
wrights and  verse  writers  with  a  jocose  and  indecorous  pur- 
pose, which  the  commentators  and  glossarists  have  either 
failed  to  see,  or  weakly  sought  to  hide,  and  of  which  the 
following  passages  and  references  will  furnish  examples. 

And  in  another  place  he  saith  that  when  souldiers  entered  any  town,  the 
first  thing  the}'  sought  for  was  the  Curate's  (or  Parson's)  Lemman.  And 
they  might  have  done  well  (as  farre  as  we  may  gather  by  his  wordes)  to 
have  given  warning  from  one  end  of  the  towne  to  the  other  :  "  Looke  to 
yourplackard  Madam  (or  Mistris)  for  fear  of  these  Prelates." 

World  of  Wonders  (1607),  p.  44. 

To  speak  in  plaine  termes,  there  was  in  this  Age,  within  the  reach  of 
our  memory,  a  president  of  the  high  court  of  Parliament  at  Paris,  who  did 
extend  his  right  so  farre  as  to  request  an  honourable  Ladie  to  lend  him 
her  plucket-phcQ  ;  promising  on  that  condition  to  give  her  an  audience. 

Idem,  p.  132. 

1  Medea.  2  /.  e,  Of  course,  the  woman's. 

8  In  the  dress  of  the  time  for  women  the  gown  was  drawn  or  "stript" 
aside,  showing  a  rich  petticoat. 


348  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

And  "  King  Lear,"  Act  III.  Sc.  4,  line  90 ;  "  Love's  La- 
bour 's  Lost,"  Act  III.  Sc.  1,  line  166 ;  the  Clown's  speech 
in  Marlowe's  "  Dr.  Faustus,"  Act  I.  Sc.  4  ;  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  "  Little  French  Lawyer,"  Act  V.  Sc.  2 ;  Idem, 
"  The  Lover's  Progress,"  Act  IV.  Sc.  3 ;  Rabelais,  liv.  iii. 
chap.  20  (Urquhart  translates  braquette  "  cod-piece,"  and 
pistolandier  " placket-racket ")  ;  Idem,  liv.  ii.  chap.  5  (Ur- 
quhart translates  braquette  "  cod-placket  ")  ;  "  Pills  to  Purge 
Melancholy,"  voL  ii.  p.  19 ;  Idem,  vol.  iv.  p.  27,  and  p.  324 ; 
"  Wit's  Paraphrase,"  p.  14,  and  p.  27. 

Others  might  be  adduced ;  but  these  are  surely  enough 
(if  not  too  much)  to  show  the  original  and  the  various 
meanings  and  the  history  of  this  word,  as  to  which  so  much 
of  an  unsatisfactory  nature  has  been  written,  although  it  was 
used  daily  in  familiar  conversation  and  composition  by 
women  of  English  blood  all  over  the  world.  I  add  only 
one  example,  of  which  I  confess  I  can  make  nothing  in  ac- 
cordance with  what  has  gone  before. 

Graunt,  Jove,  &  placket  graunt,  where  by  the  Gods  uphold  I  may. 
geueca's  Ten  Tragedies  (1581),  fol.  189  b. 

This  occurs  in  "  Hercules  GEteus,"  and  I  find  that  it  is  a 
translation  of  the  line  — 

Da,  da,  tuendos  Jupiter,  saltern  Deos. 

Here  placket  and  uphold  are  used  to  render  in  English  the 
idea  conveyed  in  tuendos  and  saltern.  But  what  was  a 
placket  that  would  uphold,  or  even  hold  safe,  the  gods  ?  It 
will  be  observed  that  this  is  perhaps  the  earliest  use  of  the 
word  that  I  have  met  with ;  earlier  probably  than  Greene's. 
Kersey,  whose  dictionary  (1702,  3d  ed.  1721)  preceded 
Bailey's,  and  whose  definition  of  the  word  is  the  earliest 
that  I  have  discovered,  says  that  a  placket  is  "  the  fore  part 
of  a  woman's  petticoat  or  shift ; "  an  incorrect  definition, 
which  is  probably  due  to  the  position  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  placket  occupied.  But  he  adds  that  it  is  "  also  a  piece 
of  Armour  that  covers  the  Breast-plate."  A  piece  of  armor 
covering  the  breast-plate  would,  I  think,  puzzle  Grose,  or 
Meyrick.  Here,  however,  we  have  a  definition  which  does 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  349 

something  to  explain  the  use  of  the  word  in  the  translation 
of  Seneca,  and  possibly  something,  too,  to  account  for  its 
having  been  mistaken  for  a  woman's  stomacher.  And  here, 
too,  it  is  in  place  to  remark  upon  Steevens's  American  note 
on  "  King  Lear,"  which,  like  most  of  his  work  in  that  kind, 
is  a  queer  mixture  of  truth  and  error.  He  quotes  a  part  of 
Florio's  definition  of  torace  :  "  also  a  placket  or  stomacher, 
a  brest-plate  or  corselet  for  the  body."  Steevens  adds,  "  The 
word  seems  to  be  used  in  the  same  sense  [a  stomacher]  in 
'  The  Wandering  Whores,'  etc.,  a  comedy,  1668,  '  If  I 
meet  a  cull  in  Moorefields,  I  can  give  him  leave  to  dive  in 
my  placket.'  "  As  to  this  passage,  not  only  does  the  word 
"  dive  "  show  that  it  could  not  refer  to  a  stomacher,  which 
was  a  stiff  outer  ornamented  garment  for  the  chest,  but  such 
a  reference  was  impossible,  because  in  1668  stomachers  \vere 
no  longer  worn.  Florio's  definition  is  plainly  untrustwor- 
thy. A  placket,  as  we  have  seen  by  the  passages  quoted 
above,  was  something  which  was  below  the  waist  (a  stom- 
acher was  above  it),  which  might  be  lined  with  silk,  and  into 
which  a  purse  hanging  outside  the  gown  might  be  slipped  or 
swapped,  for  greater  security  (see  the  passage  above  from 
Greene's  "Friar  Bacon,  etc."),  thus  bringing  the  purse  into 
very  close  and  intimate  contact  with  the  wearer's  person. 
Stomacher  is  impossible,  absurd.  How,  though,  came  it 
about  that  Florio  should  use  placket  and  stomacher  as 
synonymous,  and  add  "a  brest-plate,  or  corselet  for  the 
body  ?  "  Put  breast-plate  or  stomacher  in  any  one  of  the 
passages  quoted  above,  and  see  that  it  is  impossible  that 
the  writer  could  have  been  thinking  of  such  a  thing.  Yet 
see  the  passage  in  the  translated  Seneca,  and  the  strange 
second  definition  in  Kersey,  "  a  piece  of  armor  that  covers 
the  breast-plate."  The  error,  I  believe,  is  to  be  ascribed  to 
the  easy  confusion  of  placket  with  plaque,  which  was  of  old 
applied,  and  is  to  this  day  applied,  to  thin  pieces  of  metal- 
work,  such  as  were  attached  both  to  breast-plates  and  to 
stomachers  by  way  of  ornament.  Hence,  at  a  time  when 
language  was  loosely  used,  plaque  might  be  taken  by  some 


350  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

persons  to  mean  a  corselet  or  a  stomacher  ; l  and  then  the 
confusion  with  placket,  another  article  of  female  apparel, 
the  name  of  which  was  used  very  inaccurately,  as  we  have 
seen  was  easy  and  almost  inevitable. 

This  word  furnishes  us  with  one  of  the  many  examples  of 
the  way  in  which  glossarists  and  annotators  misquote  each 
other  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  adopt  a  definition 
or  an  etymology  without  question.  Nares  (1784)  having 
added  to  his  very  imperfect  and  misleading  definition  of  the 
word  ("  a  petticoat  ")  that  "  Bailey  says  it  was  the  fore-part 
of  the  shift  or  petticoat,"  this  definition  has  been  adopted 
by  some,  and  Bailey  given  as  authority  with  Nares.  But 
Bailey  says  no  such  thing :  he  says  it  is  "  the  open  part  of 
a  woman's  petticoat;"  an  impossible  definition:  a  placket 
could  not  mean  an  aperture ;  he  and  the  speaker  in  Middle- 
ton's  "Anything  for  a  Quiet  Life,"  cited  above,  had  "  plack- 
et-hole "  in  mind.  What  the  placket  was  for  which  the  hole 
was  made  and  used,  I  hope  there  will  no  longer  be  any  doubt. 
The  subject  is  one  which  it  is  difficult  to  treat  with  grav- 
ity and  decorum  ;  and  if  any  one  is  disposed  to  join  Bi- 
rone,  and  style  the  writer  of  this  little  excursus  upon  the 
word  u  dread  prince  of  plackets,"  he  may  do  so  :  only  let 
it  be  remembered  that  the  jest  is  mine. 

Finally,  it  is  to  be  said  that  thirty  years  and  more  ago 
Mr.  Halliwell-Phillips,  with  the  accuracy  and  the  thorough- 
ness of  research  which  distinguish  him  among  antiquari- 
ans and  commentators  on  Shakespeare,  gave  in  his  inval- 
uable "  Archaic  and  Provincial  Dictionary,"  briefly,  but 
completely,  the  correct  definition  of  this  word,  both  in  its 
proper  and  its  perverted  use  ;  a  definition  which  ought  to 
have  prevented  all  the  subsequent  confusion  and  misappre- 
hension upon  the  subject,  and  which  I  can  only  hope  to  have 
confirmed  in  giving  this  account  of  the  word's  etymology 
and  history. 

*  Cotgrave  (1611).  "Plagues.  Flat  pieces  of  goldsmith's  work,  resem- 
bling little  flowers,"  etc.  Now,  we  know  that  such  little  flower-like  piece* 
of  goldsmith's  work  were  common  on  both  stomachers  and  corselets. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  351 

e 

Parcel-bawd,  parcel-gilt,  "  words  used,"  we  are  told,  "  by 
Elbow  and  Mrs.  Quickly,  and  explained  by  the  commenta- 
tors as  meaning  half-bawd,  half-gilt,  but  not  hyphened  in 
old  editions,  and  probably  intended  to  have  another  sense ; 
nearly  =  species."  Quite  wrong,  as  everybody  knows. 
Even  at  this  day  a  silver  goblet  gilt  inside  is  said  to  be 
parcel-gilt. 

Pregnant.  In  Hamlet's  well-known  phrase,  "  crook  the 
pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee,"  every  intelligent  English 
reader  knows  intuitively  that  pregnant  means  "  fruitful, 
bearing  benefits."  But  Dr.  Schmidt  says  it  means  "  dis- 
posed, prompt,  ready ;  "  an  astonishing  misapprehension, 
even  in  a  German,  for  the  next  line  is,  "  That  thrift  may 
follow  fawning." 

Remember  thy  courtesy.  On  this  phrase  Dyce  in  his 
glossary  says  nothing,  having  accepted  it  (after  some  previ- 
ous discussion)  as  meaning  merely  "  put  on  your  hat ;  "  and 
this  explanation  is  given  in  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon.  But 
it  is  quite  possible  (I  am  far  from  saying  it  is  certain)  that 
the  speaker  in  this  case  (Armado,  "  Love's  Labour's  Lost," 
Act  V.  Sc.  1),  and  in  some  others,  does  ask  the  person  whom 
he  addresses  to  put  on  his  hat,  and  yet  that  "  remember  thy 
courtesy  "  does  not  mean  "  put  on  your  hat."  The  phrase 
is  one  which  I  have  found  very  perplexing,  and,  after  no  lit- 
tle consideration  of  it,  I  am  even  now  far  from  certain  as  to 
its  meaning.  In  the  passage  in  question  it  is  generally  sup- 
posed (as  I  once  supposed  it)  to  be  addressed  to  one  of  the 
persons  present.  Not  so.  Armado  is  expatiating  to  Holo- 
fernes  upon  the  King's  familiar  condescension  to  him,  and 
tells  him  that,  "  among  other  important  and  most  serious 
designs,  and  of  great  import  indeed  too,"  his  majesty  will 
say  to  him  (Armado),  "I  do  beseech  thee  remember  thy- 
courtesy;  I  beseech  thee  apparel  thy  head."  Holofernes 
had  been  much  too  long  in  conference  with  Armado  to  have 
this  compliment  paid  to  him  then,  and,  moreover,  a  brief 
consideration  of  the  whole  speech  will  show  that  the  Span- 
iard is  describing  the  King's  conduct  to  him.  The  passage 


852  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

» 

which  seems  to  have  determined  Mr.  Dyce's  judgment  is 
the  following,  from  Ben  Jonson's  "  Every  Man  in  his  Hu- 
mour :  "  — 

Knowell  [to  a  servant  bringing  a  letter].  To  me,  sir?  What  do  you 
mean  ?  Pray  you,  remember  your  courts'y.  [Reads.]  "  To  his  most  se- 
lected friend  Edward  Knowell."  What  might  the  gentleman's  name  IK, 
sir,  that  sent  it?  Nay,  pray  you,  be  covered. 

Here,  plainly,  as  in  the  former  case,  the  speaker  tells  the 
person  spoken  to  to  put  on  his  hat.  But  does  it  follow  there- 
fore that  "remember  thy  courtesy  "  means  "put  on  your 
hat  ?  "  I  think  not.  This  is  certain,  —  that  it  cannot  have 
that  purport  without  absolute  reversal  of  the  meaning  both 
of  remember  and  courtesy,  which  had  the  same  meaning  in 
Shakespeare's  time  that  they  have  now.  Moreover,  at  that 
time,  no  less  than  now,  courtesy  required  the  removal  of  the 
hat,  the  doffing  of  the  cap.  It  were  needless  to  quote  pas- 
sages in  support  of  this ;  but  here  is  one  very  much  to  the 
purpose  from  Florio's  "  Second  Fruites,"  1591 :  — 

Let  us  make  a  lawe  that  no  man  put  off  his  hat  or  cap,  etc.  .  .  . 
This  is  a  kind  of  courtesy  or  ceremony  rather  to  be  avoided. 

Folio  55. 

Doffing  hat  or  cap  was  indeed  so  much  a  part  of  a  salute  as 
making  a  leg.  No  well-behaved  person,  of  whatever  rank 
or  condition,  forgot  it.  And  that  to  remember  courtesy  was 
not  to  forget  the  proprieties  of  salutation  is  shown  (were 
that  necessary)  by  this  passage  from  "  Sir  Amadas  "  — 

Thoffe »  Sir  Amadas  wer  in  morning  broght, 
His  curtasy  forgat  he  noght, 
Bot  salud  him  full  right. 

Line  407. 

To  assume,  therefore,  that  "to  remember  one's  courtesy  " 
meant  "  to  put  on  one's  hat  "  is  to  set  aside  custom  wholly, 
both  as  to  language  and  as  to  conduct.  Moreover,  the  pas- 
sages in  question  —  those  in  "  Love's  Labour  's  Lost,"  and 
in  "  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  "  (and  all  others  I  believe 
that  have  been  cited)  —  exhibit  the  phrase  as  used  by  a  supe- 
rior to  an  inferior,  and  therefore  as  implying  an  excuse  of 
1  Though. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  353 

ceremony.  But  here  is  one  in  which  it  is  used  by  an  inferior 
to  a  superior,  and  in  which,  besides,  it  can  have  nothing  to 
do  with  taking  off  or  putting  on  the  hat.  In  Marlowe's 
"  Doctor  Faustus,"  a  carter  is  talking  with  Faustus  about 
a  trick  played  upon  a  horse-courser  who  was  made  to  believe 
that  he  pulled  the  doctor's  leg  off  ;  and  this  is  said :  — 

Carter.     And  do  you  remember  nothing  of  your  leg? 

Faust.    No,  in  good  sooth. 

Car.     Then  \pray  you,  remember  your  courtesy. 

Faust.     I  thank  you,  sir 

Car.    'T  is  not  so  much  worth. 

Faustus,  Act  V.  Sc.  1. 

Here  the  phrase  used  by  the  inferior  to  one  greatly  his  su- 
perior is  just  that  used  by  Knowell  to  the  servant,  and  by 
the  King  to  Armado,  and  there  is  no  question  of  hats  or 
bows.  The  point  is  a  difficult  one  ;  but  as  remember  could 
not  mean  "  neglect,  forget,  or  leave  off,"  and  courtesy  re- 
quired the  taking  off  the  hat,  and  as  the  phrase  might  be 
used  by  an  inferior  to  a  superior,  it  seems  clear  that  "  re- 
member thy  courtesy,"  although  it  may  have  had  some  con- 
nection with  the  waiving  of  ceremony,  could  not  have  meant 
11  put  on  your  hat." 

Runaway.  Of  all  the  many  inacceptable  and  needless 
explanations  of  this  word  (of  which  I  myself  once  fur- 
nished one),  Dr.  Schmidt  adopts  that  which  is  the  most  un- 
acceptable, one  presenting  an  idea  which  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible that  Shakespeare  should  have  had  in  mind :  "  people 
who  ramble  about  the  streets  at  night,  to  spy  out  the  doings 
of  others."  The  inconsistency  of  this  meaning  with  the 
context  is  manifest  at  a  glance.  These  people  (to  whom  it 
would  be  absurd  to  apply  the  term  run-away)  ramble  about 
the  streets  at  night,  they  reed  night  for  their  occupation ; 
and  therefore,  we  are  asked  to  believe,  Juliet  prays  for 
night  to  come  :  and  prays  for  it  "  that  runaway's  eyes  may 
wink,"  i.  e.  because  the  darkness  which  is  the  necessary 
condition  of  their  eavesdropping,  and  which  they  desire, 
will  surely  cause  them  to  (jo  to  sleep.  Moreover,  Juliet  cared 
for,  thought  of,  no  one  who  might  be  in  the  streets.  She 


354  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

knew  well  enough  that  she  was  secure  against  all  such  spy- 
ing. The  Capulet  mansion  was  no  street-side  house,  to  be 
pryed  into  by  any  passer-by.  Juliet's  window,  her  balcony, 
her  loggia,  were  separated  from  all  that  by  a  garden  and  a 
wall ;  at  Romeo's  passing  of  which  Shakespeare  makes  her 
wonder.  This  explanation  given  in  the  Lexicon  is  the  most 
futile  of  all  which  have  been  elicited  by  this  passage.  Ju- 
liet's runaway  is  merely  the  sun. 

The  all-seeing  sun  that  makes  chaste  virgins  blush. 

See  the  notes  on  this  passage  in  the  "  Riverside  "  Shake- 
speare, and  in  my  first  edition. 

Seal.  Troilus,  delivering  Cressida  to  Diomed,  earnestly 
begs  him  to  "  entreat  her  fair."  Diomed,  leaving  his  re- 
quest unnoticed,  turns  to  Cressida,  and  with  high  compli- 
ments to  her  charms,  tells  her  that  she  may  "  command  him 
wholly."  Whereupon  Troilus  says,  — 

Grecian,  thou  dost  not  use  me  courteously, 
To  shame  the  zeal  of  my  petition  to  thee, 
In  praising  her. 

Act  IV.  Sc.  4. 

For  zeal  the  old  copies  have  the  very  easy  misprint  seal  ; 
and  this  Dr.  Schmidt  retains,  explaining,  or  tliinking  that 
he  explains,  "  to  shame  the  seal  of  my  petition,"  by  the 
gloss,  "  to  disgrace  the  grant  of  my  request."  But  not  con- 
tent with  this,  he  adds,  "  most  modern  editors,  preposterously, 
zeal."  Yet  every  English  editor  of  any  note  or  weight, 
from  Theobald  in  1733  to  Rolfe  in  1883,  and  the  very  Cam- 
bridge editors,  who  reject  no  reading  that  is  not  nonsense, 
and  admit  none  which  may  be  questioned,  even  on  the  ground 
that  another  is  as  good,  accept  zeal.  Indeed  to  be  capable 
of  understanding  Shakespeare  is  to  see  that  zeal  was  his 
word.  Troilus  expostulates  with  Diomed  because  he  dis- 
courteously disregards  the  zeal,  the  earnestness  of  his  solic- 
itation, and  craftily  sets  it  aside  by  a  compliment  to  Cressida. 
Shent.  Upon  the  reading  in  "  Troilus  and  Cressida," 
Act  II.  Sc.  3,  "  he  shent  our  messengers,"  for  "  he  sent  our 
messengers "  of  the  folio,  Dr.  Schmidt  remarks,  "  somo 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  355 

modern  editors  slient ;  but  there  is  no  authorized  instance  of 
the  imperfect."  Suppose  there  is  n't ;  what  of  it  ?  If 
Shakespeare  needed  a  word  but  once,  he  would  use  it  but 
once.  And  what  does  Dr.  Schmidt  mean  by  "  authorized 
instance  "  ?  Spenser,  Dry  den,  and  Shenstone  use  "  the  im- 
perfect." They  are  "  authority  "  enough,  one  would  think. 
As  to  Shakespeare  himself,  he  would  have  used  the  preter- 
plu-perfect  of  anything  without  fear  of  any  or  pity  for  all 
the  grammarians  in  Christendom,  if  he  had  need,  a  hundred 
times  or  once,  and  he  thought  his  audience  would  understand 
him  ;  and  then  he  would  have  forgotten  all  about  it,  like  a 
man  of  common  sense  as  he  was.  Dr.  Schmidt's  "  somo 
modern  editors  "  again  includes  every  English  editor  of  any 
importance  from  Theobald  to  Rolfe.  The  Cambridge  edi- 
tion does  not  even  remark  upon  the  misprint. 

Skin  between  the  brows.  Dogberry  says  that  Goodman 
Verges  is  "  as  honest  as  the  skin  between  his  brows."  Upon 
this  remarkable  comparison  I  have  seen  not  one  note  of  ex- 
planation; nor  does  Dyce's  Glossary  or  the  Shakespeare 
Lexicon,  both  of  which  give  glosses  for  words  and  phrases 
which  need  it  no  more  than  "  bread  and  butter  "  does.  It  is 
assumed  as  Shakespeare's  phrase ;  but  it  is  not  so.  It  is  a 
mere  folk  phrase  of  indefinable  antiquity,  like  many  cred- 
ited to  him.  Here  are  two  examples  of  its  use  nearly  two 
centuries  apart :  — 

I  am  as  true,  I  wold  them  knew,  as  skin  between  thy  brows. 
Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  (1566). 

Virtuous  !  Ah,  I  warrant  she  's  as  virtuous  as 
The  skin  between  her  brows. 

Durfey's  Don  Quixote  (1729),  p.  222. 

But  here  is  a  passage,  in  time  between  these  two,  in  which 
the  phrase  seems  to  be  taken,  if  not  as  offensive,  as  incom- 
prehensible by  a  Dogberry :  — 

Ord.    I  am  as  honest  as  the  skin  that  is 
Between  thy  brows. 

Con.     What  skin  between  my  brows  ? 
What  skin,  thou  kuavo  V    I  am  a  Christian 
And  what  is  more,  a  constable.     What  skin  ? 

Cartwrio-ht,  The  Ordinary  (1651),  p.  83. 


356  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

Sickle.  Dr.  Schmidt  refuses  to  recognize  shekel,  and 
reads,  "not  with  fond  sickles  of  the  tested  gold,"  with  the 
remark  (this  time  without  epithet  of  opprobrium)  that 
"  modern  editors  read  shekels."  And  so  I  am  sure  would 
Dr.  Schmidt  have  read,  had  he  known  that  sickle  is  a  mere 
irregular  phonetic  form  of  shekel,  because  of  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  s  before  a  vowel  as  sh.  It  had  that  sound  also  even 
after  a  consonant  t ;  for  we  have  in  the  folio  of  1623 :  — 

Switi  and  spurs 

Stvits  and  spurs,  or  lie  crie  a  match, 

for  "switch  and  spurs,"  etc.  The  name  of  Solomon's  Ethio- 
pian queen  was  written  both  Sheba  and  Saba,  as  in  the 
Septuagint,  but  always  aspirated. 

Sincere  elicits  the  most  characteristic  remark  that  it  is 
"sincere  behind  the  substantive,  and  sincere  before  it." 
Now  that  Shakespeare  would  accent  sincere  according  to 
his  needs  and  his  opportunities  is  true  enough.  The  unre- 
ceivable  part  of  this  opinion  is  that  which  alone  makes  it, 
pertinent,  —  the  ticketing  sincere  according  to  its  relative 
position.  Shakespeare  made  no  such  distinction.  He  used 
the  word  but  four  times ;  altogether  too  small  a  number  of 
examples  to  form  a  generalized  opinion  upon.  Of  these, 
only  two  deviate,  or  seem  to  deviate,  from  the  usual  pro- 
nunciation, one  in  "  Henry  VIII.,"  his  last  play,  a  play  so 
shiftless,  confused,  and  headlong  in  its  versification,  that 
nothing  on  such  a  point  can  be  reasonably  inferred  from  it ; 
the  other  is  the  following  in  "  King  Lear,"  Act  II.  Sc.  2  :  — 

Kent.     Sir,  in  good  sooth,  in  sincere  verity, 
Under  the  allowance  of  your  great  aspect, 
Whose  influence,  like  the  wreath  of  radiant  fire 
On  flickering  Phoebus'  front  — 

Corn.  What  mean'st  by  this  ? 

Kent.     To  go  out  of  my  dialect,  etc. 

Who  that  knows  Shakespeare's  ways  does  not  see  that  in 
this  passage  sincere  has  its  usual  accent ! 

Spit.  Here  we  have  again  "  fall  to  it  with  fresh  courage  " 
as  the  gloss  of  "  spit  in  the  hole  "  (Taming  of  the  Shrew, 
Act  III.  Sc.  1),  one  of  the  Lexicon's  amusing  blunders, 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  357 

On  Falstaff's  "  I  would  I  might  never  spit  white  again " 
(2  Henry  IV.,  Act  I.  Sc.  2),  there  is  this  monitory  com- 
ment :  "  Nares  adduces  some  passages  from  contemporary 
writers  to  prove  that  to  spit  white  was  thought  to  be  the 
consequence  of  intemperance  in  drinking ;  but  he  has  for- 
gotten to  ascertain  the  color  of  other  people's  spittle." 
Dr.  Schmidt,  it  appears,  does  not  know  that  simple  saliva  is 
clear  and  glairy,  like  the  white  of  an  egg.  It  is  only  when 
it  becomes  frothy  that  it  is  white.  Moreover  Nares,  and 
Dyce  who  follows  him,  are  not  quite  right.  When  a  man 
is  very  thirsty,  and  his  throat  is  dry,  his  saliva  becomes  re- 
duced in  quantity,  and  white,  frothy.  This  was  noted.  See 
for  example  the  following  passage  from  Urquhart's  "  Rabe- 
lais," Book  II.  Chap.  2  :  "  For  every  man  found  himself 
so  altered  and  a-dry  with  drinking  these  flat  wines  that  they 
did  nothing  but  spit,  and  that  as  white  as  Maltha  cotton, 
saying,  We  have  of  the  Pantagruel,  and  our  throats  are 
salted."  Falstaff  prizes  the  thirst  that  enables  him  to 
swallow  sack,  and  says,  "  If  it  be  bat  a  hot  day,  and  I  bran- 
dish anvthing  but  a  bottle,  T  would  I  might  never  spit 
white  again  :  "  that  is,  never  be  thirsty  again.  And  there 
is  the  old  story,  of  a  wine  lover  on  a  hot  day  saying, 
k'  I  've  a  thirst  that  I  would  n't  take  a  hundred  dollars  for." 

Step-mother,  "  a  mother  by  marriage  only."  An  insuffi- 
cient and  misleading  gloss.  A  mother-in-law  is  also  a 
mother  by  marriage  only.  A  step-mother  is  a  father's 
second  (or  other-numbered)  wife. 

Study.  The  Friar  says,  in  "  Much  Ado  About  Nothing," 
of  the  supposed  dead  Hero  and  her  repentant  lover,  — 

The  idea  of  her  life  shall  sweetly  creep 
Into  his  study  of  imagination  ;  — 

Act  IV.  Sc.  1. 

meaning,  it  is  needless  to  say,  his  imaginative  study,  his 
imaginative  musings.  But  Dr.  Schmidt  tells  us  that  here 
study  is  used  figuratively  for  "  an  apartment  appropriated 
to  literary  employment,"  into  which  the  idea  of  Hero 
creeps  slowly  !  —  a  npi^n  upon  which  it  is  needless  to  waste 
a  word. 


358  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

The  is  made  the  occasion  of  deploying  much  frivolous 
grammatical  pedantry,  to  which  no  particular  reference  is 
necessary.  But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  grammarian  who, 
writing  of  English,  says  that  passages  like  the  following 
contain  "  differences  from  modern  or  common  usage  ?  "  — 
"  the  one  so  like  the  other ;  "  "  for  urging  it  the  second 
time  to  me  ; "  "  knock  'em  down  by  the  dozens  ; "  and  so 
forth!  Every  English-speaking  person,  literate  and  illit- 
erate, nowadays  uses  the  in  just  that  way,  and  in  such 
connection.  Without  the  article,  such  phrases  would  not 
be  English,  would  not  be  intelligible. 

Tidy,  the  Lexicon  tells  us,  is  "  used  in  a  scarcely  ascer- 
tainable  (and  at  any  rate  improper)  sense  by  Doll  Tear- 
Sheet  in  addressing  Falstaff  "  when  she  calls  him  a  "  little 
tidy  Bartholomew  boar-pig."  On  the  contrary,  the  meaning 
does  not  need  to  be  ascertained  and  the  use  of  the  word  is 
quite  proper.  Tidy  simply  means  "  in  good  condition," 
and  so,  "  attractive."  It  is  used  now  in  England  in  a  com- 
plimentary way,  just  as  Mistress  Doll  uses  it.  But  it  is  not 
high  class  speech. 

Toward.  Soon  after  the  publication  of  the  second  vol- 
ume of  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon,  an  article  was  sent  to  me 
which  I  laid  in  the  Lexicon  and  forgot  until  I  found  it 
as  I  turned  the  leaves  at  the  present  examination  of  the 
work.1  It  opened  thus  :  — 

PHILOLOGICAL  AND  CRITICAL  NONSENSE. —A  learned  German,  Dr. 
Alexander  Schmidt,  has  published  a  dictionary  of  all  the  English  words, 
phrases,  and  constructions  in  the  works  of  Shakespeare.  Among  other 
words,  he*  treats  of  the  words  toward,  and  towards,  in  separate  articles, 
just  as  if  Shakespeare  was  responsible  for  the  difference  in  spelling.  Dr. 
Schmidt  cites  instances  of  the  use  of  both  forms,  and  finds  them  nearly 
equal.  Before  a  consonant,  vowel,  etc.,  aspirate,  the  instances  cited  of 
toward  are  all  but  exactly  numerous  as  those  of  towards,  but  before  a 
semi-vowel,  towards  occurs  in  the  rate  of  four  to  one.  On  the  strength  of 
a  single  quotation,  Dr.  Schmidt  allows  one  more  meaning  to  towards  than 
to  toward,  viz.,  about,  in  the  passage  from  "Richard  III.,"  "  towards 
three  or  four  o'clock." 

1  It  came  to  me  in  a  blank  envelope,  like  many  of  its  kind  ;  and  *  do 
not  know  to  what  journal  to  credit  it. 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  359 

Now  all  this  is  utter  nonsense.  It  is  etymology  run  mad.  Shakespeare 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  spelling  of  the  words  in  his  works.  He  is 
not  known  to  havo  supervised  the  publication  of  a  single  play,  or  any 
collection  of  his  plays.  Nor  is  any  edition  of  his  works  authority  for  the 
spelling  of  any  word  in  his  time,  or  at  any  time,  for  the  proof-reading  of 
the  first  edition  and  of  all  subsequent  editions  has  been  careless.  The 
proof-reading  of  all  our  publications  is  careless,  and  the  spelling  of  words 
in  any  book,  even  in  most  dictionaries,  is  not  proof  that  it  is  right,  even 
in  the  eyes  of  the  author.1  If  Noah  Webster  could  rise  from  the  dead  to 
revise  the  "unabridged"  he  would  indignantly  throw  it  into  the  fire. 

Every  English  scholar  knows  that  the  spelling  of  the  language  in 
Shakespeare's  time  was  unsettled,  and  that  no  book  published  prior  to  the 
first  edition  of  Johnson's  dictionary,  about  1785,  can  be  quoted  as  au- 
thority. And  every  English  scholar  will  confess  that  Dr.  Johnson's  first 
edition  can  no  longer  be  used  as  authority  for  present  spelling. 

Ward  is  very  common  in  many  compound  words.  We  have  upward, 
downward,  inward,  onward,  toward,  afterward,  hitherward,  thitherward, 
earthward,  heavenward,  backward,  forward,  and  many  more.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  termination  "ward  "  is  motion,  or  direction,  to  some  place. 

The  final  "s"  appended  to  this  class  of  words  is  not  authorized  by 
analogy,  or  by  grammatical  construction.  The  words  are  all  used  as  prep- 
ositions, adjectives,  and  adverbs,  and  cannot  have  a  plural  form.  We 
speak  of  an  untoward  accident,  of  a  forward  child,  and  a  forward  march, 
of  a  downward  flow,  and  an  upward  flight  ;  and  who  would  put  a  final 
"s  "  to  these  adjectives  ?  Is  there  any  rule  founded  on  analogy  for  adding 
an  "  s  "  to  a  word  in  order  to  make  it  a  preposition,  or  an  adverb  ?  Why 
then  should  toward  and  afterward  have  the  sibilant  hiss,  already  too  fre- 
quent in  the  language  ? 

This  critic  seems  to  me,  I  need  hardly  say,  quite  right  in 
his  view  of  the  superfluity  of  the  distinction  upon  which  he 
comments.  But  the  difference  between  toward  and  towards, 
afterward  and  afterwards,  although  it  is  one  which  we  may 
be  sure  Shakespeare  cared  nothing  about,  and  knew  nothing 
about,  is  not  in  fact,  one  of  mere  spelling.  In  towards,  etc., 
the  s  is  the  consequence  of  the  addition  of  the  adverbial 
es.  at  first  the  sign  of  the  possessive  case.  It  is  needless, 
and  worse  than  needless,  and  does  not  in  usage  at  all  affect 
the  meaning  of  the  word.  But  still,  as  the  difference  was 
originally  etymological,  and  not  one  of  mere  spelling,  Dr. 
Schmidt,  according  to  the  plan  of  his  work,  did  only  what 
was  proper  in  recording  it.  I  observe,  however,  an  essen- 

iThis  is  true  in  yet  another  sense.  It  should  be  known  that  writers  are 
not  permitted  to  spell  in  public  as  they  please,  but  are  compelled  to  con- 
form to  the  standard  of  the  printing-office  ;  which  is  almost  universal!}' 
Webster. 


360  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

tial  perversion  of  its  meaning  in  one  of  his  sections  ;  in 
which  it  is  said  that  it  is  "  equivalent  to  to  "  in  such  cases 
as  the  following :  "a  reverend  man  .  .  .  towards  this 
afflicted  fancy  drew ;  "  "  the  king  is  now  in  progress  to- 
wards Saint  Alban's  ;  "  "  he  comes  towards  London  ;  " 
"  towards  London  they  do  bend  their  course ;  "  "  gallop 
apace  .  .  .  towards  Phoebus'  lodging."  This  is  like  the 
vulgar  confusion  of  in  with  into.  In  all  these  cases  toward 
means  merely  "  in  the  direction  of,"  implying  only  motion 
thitherward.  An  army  may  march  toward  London,  and 
yet  not  march  to  London,  which  happened  in  some  of  those 
cases.  This  distinction  is  essential.  That  between  toward 
and  towards  is  quite  superfluous  and  futile ;  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  Shakespeare  used  the  two  forms  indiscrimi- 
nately and  thoughtlessly  ;  and  indeed  whether  we  have  the 
words  as  he  wrote  them,  in  either  case,  is  equally  uncertain 
and  unimportant. 

Varlet.  I  cannot,  causa  pudoris,  even  in  this  purely 
glossarial  paper,  remark  particularly  upon  what  is  said  in 
the  Lexicon  in  regard  to  this  word  in  "  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida,"  Act  V.  Sc.  1.  But  I  commend  it  to  the  attention 
of  students  as  one  of  the  most  amazing  exhibitions  in  crit- 
ical literature  of  overstrained  effort  at  subtlety.  The  care- 
less phonetic  spelling  of  the  folio,  varlot,  is  retained,  and  is 
called  "  a  kind  of  hermaphroditical  form  "  connected  with 
harlot. 

Viol,  "  a  sort  of  violin."  On  the  contrary  it  was  not  a 
sort  of  violin  ;  and  a  viol-player  in  Shakespeare's  time 
would  have  scorned  to  play  a  violin.  Then,  the  violin  was 
used  only  by  jesters  and  jongleurs  and  street  musicians. 
The  viol  was  made  with  frets,  was  of  a  different  size  and 
shape,  and  was  strung  in  a  very  different  way  from  the  vio- 
lin. It  was  the  instrument  of  professional  musicians  and 
of  gentle-folk.  It  was  not  until  the  time  of  Charles  II. 
that  the  violin  came  into  reputable  use.  Nor  was  the  viol- 
de-gamboys  "  a  violoncello."  Then  the  violoncello  (a  small 
violone)  was  unknown. 


GLOSSARIES   AND   LEXICONS.  361 

Well-as-near,  in  "  the  lady  shrieks  and  well-a-near  does 
fall  in  travail  with  her  fear "  (Pericles,  Act  III.  Prol.), 
is  glossed  as  "well-a-day,  alas."  Not  so,  at  all,  as  no  one 
need  be  told.  It  is  not  an  exclamation  ;  but  means  merely 
"  very  nearly." 

Where,  we  are  told,  is  "  used  by  Shakespeare  after  verbs 
of  seeming  when  there  would  be  expected,"  as  in  these  pas- 
sages and  others  like  them  :  "  behold  where  Madam  Mitiga- 
tion comes  ;  "  "  look  where  Beatrice  like  a  lapwing  runs  ;  " 
"  look  where  the  sturdy  rebel  sits,"  etc.  In  such  construc- 
tions there  might  be  expected  by  a  German,  but  by  no  one 
of  English  blood  and  speech.  In  theso  cases,  it  will  be 
seen  at  a  glance  that,  according  to  English  idiom,  there 
would  make  them  almost  nonsense. 

Wince  or  Winch,  "  the  first  form  preferred  by  modern 
editors ;  the  latter  better  authorized  by  the  old  editions." 
Dr.  Schmidt  is  then  unaware  that  winch  is  a  mere  irregular 
phonetic  spelling  of  wince,  owing  to  the  tendency  of  the  5 
sound  with  careless  speakers  to  assume  an  aspirate. 

Here  I  stop,  with  half  the  eight  page  signatures  of  my 
copy  of  the  Shakespeare  Lexicon  uncut.  We  however 
have  seen  enough,  I  venture  to  say,  to  satisfy  any  intel- 
ligent reader  that  this  work  is  not  to  be  trusted,  except 
upon  points  of  grammar,  and  not  always  upon  these.  The 
task  which  I  have  hastily  —  and  I  fear  very  superficially  — • 
performed  is  one  which  I  was  not  ready  to  undertake, 
and  is  one  of  a  sort  that  I  have  never  undertaken  unless 
driven  to  it  by  a  sort  of  necessity,  and  in  defence  both 
of  myself  and  of  views  which  seemed  to  be  of  some  im- 
portance. The  examination  of  the  Lexicon  into  which  I 
have  in  this  manner  been  led,  although  it  has  necessarily 
been  so  imperfect,  has  put  it,  before  me  at  least,  in  a  light 
far  less  favorable  than  that  in  which  I  looked  upon  it  at 
first.  It  is  a  very  scientific,  very  systematic,  very  elaborate 
performance  ;  and  like  many  scientific,  systematic,  elaborate 
performances,  utterly  worthless  because  misleading.  This 
with  great  respect  for  Dr.  Schmidt's  erudition  and  industry. 


362  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

He  is  doubtless  a  well-equipped  scholar,  and  a  very  thor- 
ough grammarian ;  but  he  seems  plainly  incompetent  to 
deal  with  the  language  of  Shakespeare;  and  his  extrava- 
gance and  his  tendency  to  overstrained  subtlety  on  the  one 
hand  and  to  a  blind  submission  to  old  authority  on  the  other 
lead  me  to  suspect  that  he  is  the  philologer  referred  to  by 
Max  Muller  when  he  speaks  (Science  of  Language,  Vol.  I. 
p.  442)  with  ironical  wonder  of  the  derivation  of  language 
"  from  one  root,  a  feat  actually  accomplished  by  a  Dr. 
Schmidt." 

I  am  sure  that  any  approval  of  this  Lexicon  which  may 
have  been  expressed  by  a  competent  person  has  come  from 
some  one  who  has  examined  it,  if  at  all,  only  in  the  slightest 
manner,  and  who  was  impressed  by  its  imposing  form,  its 
minuteness,  and  its  systematic  arrangement.  The  book 
plainly  needs  to  be  examined,  article  by  article,  by  some 
competent  English  scholar  of  average  common  sense,  and 
an  appreciation  of  it  set  forth,  before  it  becomes,  by  reason 
of  the  external  qualities  just  enumerated,  an  "  authority." 
Upon  my  casual  examination,  I  venture  merely  the  opinion 
that  its  erudite  compiler  lacks  certainly  one  qualification  for 
his  task,  —  an  inbred  understanding  of  the  English  of  now- 
adays and  of  Shakespeare's  time ;  that  so  far  is  he  from 
being  "  accurate  "  that  not  only  in  words  and  phrases  which 
are  the  proper  subjects  of  explanation,  but  even  as  to  those 
which  need  none  to  any  average  reader,  he  has  made  many 
mistakes  ;  and  that  as  to  the  rest,  his  work  is  so  far  from 
being  "  invaluable  "  that  it  is  utterly  needless  even  to  the 
least  learned  of  my  intelligent  readers,  —  a  striking  and 
characteristic  exhibition  and  example  of  the  superfluity  of 
Shakespeareanism. 

In  two  passages  I  remark  with  pleasure  that  Dr.  Schmidt's 
Lexicon  is  distinguished  by  a  sound  adherence  to  the  read- 
ing of  the  old  copies,  and  a  correct  explanation  —  passages 
as  to  which  I  with  others  have  erred  in  making  needless 
changes.  The  first  is  in  u  Julius  Caesar,"  Act  II.  Sc.  1 :  •— 
For  if  thou  path,  thy  native  semblance  on. 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  3G3 

Here  for  path  we  have  had  march,  put,  hadst,  hath,  and 
pass.  But  path  is  right,  meaning  "  walk  past,  go  as  along  a 
path."  So  in  Braithwaite's  "  Arcadian  Princesse,"  1637, 
Part  II.  p.  149 :  "  Twice  had  I  pattid  my  border  walk 
when  this  Statue  first  presented  it  selfe  unto  mee." 

The  other  passage  is  in  Macbeth's  "  commends  the  in- 
gredients of  our  poisoned  chalice  to  our  own  lips,"  as  it  has 
always  been  printed  in  modern  editions.  But  the  folio  has 
"  the  ingredience"  and  so  in  Act  IV.  Sc.  1,  "  the  ingredi- 
ence  of  our  cauldron."  This  is  the  right  reading ;  and  I 
had  given  it  in  the  "  Riverside  "  Shakespeare  ;  but  shrunk 
from  it  in  the  proof,  not  in  doubt,  but  thinking  it  was  not 
worth  while  to  change  the  so  long  accepted  text  and  pro- 
voke censure  for  such  a  trifle,  and  when,  too,  ingredience 
might  be  a  misprint  for  ingredients.  But  the  former,  which 
Dr.  Schmidt  gives,  is  the  right  word.  The  idea  is  collec- 
tive, not  separative.  So  in  "  Othello,"  Act  II.  Sc.  3,  "  every 
inordinate  cup  is  blessed,  and  the  ingredience  is  a  devil." 
The  writer  quoted  just  above  shall  illustrate  and  establish 
this  point.  "  Madame,  (quoth  Metoxos)  to  relate  every 
particular  ingredience  used  by  this  divine  artist  [a  physi- 
cian] would  so  enlarge  the  extent  of  my  discourse,"  etc. 
Idem,  page  23. 

Notwithstanding  these  two  laudable  preservations  of  the 
old  text,  and  others  which  I  may  possibly  have  passed  over 
unobserved,  I  venture  to  think  that  the  erudite  German 
Realschuldirector  might  well  place  himself  in  statu  pupil- 
lari  to  some  of  those  modern  English  editors  at  whose  pre- 
posterousness  and  incompetence  he  has  thought  it  so  often 
becoming  in  him,  with  more  daring  than  discretion,  to  scoff 
in  terms  which  from  time  to  time  have  spurred  the  sides  of 
my  flagging  purpose. 


864  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 


NOTE 
ON  w.  s.  WALKER'S  "CRITICAL  EXAMINATION  or  THE  TEXT." 

AT  the  suggestion  of  a  friend  who  read  my  remarks  upon 
Walker's  "  Critical  Examination,"  etc.,  on  its  first  publica- 
tion,1 I  give,  with  more  particularity,  yet  very  briefly,  the 
reasons  for  my  appreciation  of  it.  That  Mr.  Walker  was 
a  scholar,  a  man  of  critical  ability,  of  candor,  and  one  who 
sincerely  sought  to  benefit  Shakespeare's  text,  no  one  who 
examines  his  work  can  doubt.  The  question  is  simply  as  to 
the  value  of  that  work,  what  it  has  done  for  the  text,  what 
it  has  suggested  of  any  importance.  For  this  is  its  limit. 
It  is  not  analytical,  cesthedcal,  or  historical,  nor  even  critical 
but  in  a  verbal  way.  It  has  no  literary  quality  as  literature 
to  be  read,  and  it  pretends  to  none. 

Let  us  look  from  this  point  of  view  at  the  second  volume, 
which  is  the  most  varied,  contains  the  greatest  number  of 
sections  and  subjects,  and  is  the  best  adapted  to  purposes 
of  examination.  Its  sections  are  seventy-seven  in  number, 
from  XLIV.  to  CXX.  Of  these  some  are  valuable.  For  ex- 
ample, it  is  shown  clearly  in  Section  CHI.  that  spring  was 
used  in  Shakespeare's  time  to  mean  "  a  shoot,  a  twig,"  and 
even,  in  the  plural,  to  mean  "  a  young  wood."  This  is  in- 
teresting and  valuable,  although  it  touches  no  passage  in  the 
plays  or  the  sonnets,  and  but  two  in  the  poems.  So  in 
Section  CXV.  it  is  shown  that  detest  in  several  passages  ex- 
presses speech,  not  sentiment,  and  means  "  protest  against, 
cry  out  upon."  And  again,  we  are  told  (Section  CXI.) 
that  control  m  Shakespeare's  day  had  the  sense  of  "  contro- 
vert, control."  Such  fruits  of  study  and  reflection  as  these 
are  contributions  to  our  knowledge,  and  helpers  to  under- 
l  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  September,  1884. 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  365 

stand  Shakespeare.  But  of  all  the  seventy-seven  sections 
in  this  volume,  there  are  of  this  kind  only  six !  Some  may 
be  well  classed  as  of  very  doubtful  value.  Such,  for  ex- 
ample, as  those  upon  the  confounding  of  e  and  er,  fits  and 
sits,  or  and  for,  and  the  like ;  points  which  need  no  discus- 
sion for  any  intelligent  and  tolerably  competent  editor. 
These  are  ten  in  number.  Then  there  are  twelve  which 
are  absolutely  and  surprisingly  wrong  and  bad ;  to  some  of 
which  I  shall  refer  more  particularly.  Thirty  are  not  doubt- 
ful, but  neither  good  nor  bad ;  being  absolutely  worthless. 
For  example,  on  the  "  derivation  of  certain  proper  names  in 
Shakespeare."  What  matter  whence  they  were  derived? 
He  took  them  as  he  found  them.  A  "peculiar  use  of 

vast,"  in  — 

No  vast  obscurity  or  misty  vale. 

Titus  Andron.,  Act  V.  Sc.  2. 
As  that  vast  shore  wash'd  with  the  farthest  sea. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  Act  II.  Sc.  2. 

How  peculiar  ?  Shakespeare  was  a  poet ;  but  this  is  hardly 
even  a  poetical  use  of  the  word.  "  The  abstract  for  the 
concrete :  "  surely  :  why  not  ?  how  not  ?  Then  we  have 
such  fiddle-faddle  as  sections  on  "  repetition  of  the  preposi- 
tion "  and  "  predicates  which  properly  indicate  effect  em- 
ployed to  express  cause,"  and  so  forth.  But  this  cant  is 
dear  to  the  grammatical  heart.  And  we  have  a  section  on 
"  c  and  t  confounded,"  and  another  on  "  art  and  act  con- 
founded." Certainly  in  a  huge  book  so  carelessly  written 
and  so  carelessly  printed  as  the  folio  of  1623,  such  blunders 
and  hundreds  like  them  would  be  made,  and  were  made  : 
every  sensible  editor,  and  most  sensible  readers,  without 
help,  will  see  them,  correct  them,  and  make  no  fuss  about  it. 
Corrections  of  such  errors  as  these  need  not  even  be  men- 
tioned by  an  editor,  unless  they  change  a  sense,  or  unless  he 
is  making  a  critical  variorum  text,  like  that  of  the  "  Cam- 
bridge "  Shakespeare,  in  which  insignificant  variation  is  re- 
corded merely  because  it  is  variation.  As  I  said  before,  there 
are  thirty  of  the  seventy-seven  sections  which  are  of  this 
quality.  Last,  I  mention  nineteen  sections  in  this  volume, 


366  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

the  publication  of  which  was  superfluous,  because  three 
years  before  their  publication  the  text  had  already  been  regu- 
lated or  interpreted  in  the  manner  which  they  advocate,  — 
to  wit,  in  my  edition  of  1857.  To  me  it  is  amusing  to  see 
these  suggestions  made,  sometimes  doubtfully,  when  the 
readings  had  been  already  taken  into  my  text,  or  the  ex- 
planations given  in  my  notes,  and  adopted  by  after-coming 
editors  silently,  but  sometimes  with  credit  to  "  Walker's 
Critical  Examination." 

Of  those  sections  which  I  have  pronounced  wholly  wrong 
and  bad,  I  shall  exhibit  and  examine  a  very  few  characteristic 
specimens.  Section  L.  is  headed,  "  Creature  frequently  pro- 
nounced as  a  trisyllable,"  and  Section  LI.,  "  On  treasure  and 
pleasure  as  trisyllables."  Now  there  seems  to  be  reason  for 
believing  that  these  words  had  sometimes  the  quantity,  as 
we  may  say,  of  trisyllables.  But  pleasure  a  trisyllable,  pro- 
nounced ple-a-sure !  Mr.  Walker,  Mr.  Walker !  a  word 
lately  derived  from  the  French  plaisir,  or  rather  that  word 
adopted  into  English  !  Equally  absurd  are  the  supposed 
pronunciations,  tre-a-sure,  and  even  cre-a-ture,  notwithstand- 
ing the  trisyllabic  form  of  the  latter  in  French.  These 
words  were  pronounced  in  Shakespeare's  time,  we  may  be 
sure,  plase-iure  (first  syllable  like  place)  and  crdte-iure.  The 
quasi  trisyllabic  quantity  with  which  they  were  sometimes 
used  was  admissible,  because  of  a  slight  setting  off  of  the  i 
(or  short  ee  sound  in  the  last  syllable,  thus,  — plase-i-ure, 
crate-i-ure.  The  word  creature  is  now  pronounced  in  this 
way  by  many  Scotland-born  and  Ireland-born  Englishmen, 
who  merely  preserve  an  old  fashion  of  speech.  The  as- 
sumption that  such  pronunciations  as  creature  and  pleasure 
were  possible  shows  into  what  vagaries  a  clever,  scholarly 
man  may  be  led.  Walker  actually  has  upon  — 

She  is  a  gallant  creature,  and  complete 
In  mind  and  feature  — 

Henry  VIII.,  Act  III.  Sc.  2. 

the  interrogative  comment,  "  Query,  creature  and  complete." 
Yes,  by  all  means,  —  but  let  us  be  consistent  and  have  — 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.         367 

She  is  a  gallant  creature,  and  complete 
In  mind  and  feature. 

The  way  in  which  Shakespeare  pronounced  these  lines  was 

this:  — 

She  ees  a  gallant  crate-lure,  and  complate 
Een  mind  and  fate-iure. 

Walker's  Section  LX.  is  on  the  "Confusion  of  e  and  ie 
final,"  of  which  the  first  example  given,  "  And  gives  to  aire 
nothing  a  local  habitation,"  etc.,  is  sufficiently  characteristic. 
It  should  seem  that  this  was  too  obvious  and  too  trivial  a 
matter  for  comment,  and  in  a  special  section.  If  the  text 
had  not  been  silently  rectified,  or  rather  modernized,  in  this 
respect  in  hundreds,  almost  thousands  of  instances,  either 
it  would  have  puzzled  the  "  average  "  modern  reader,  or  the 
number  of  the  textual  notes  would  have  been  largely  in- 
creased. There  is,  however,  no  confusion  of  e  and  ie,  the 
variation  being  merely  the  result  of  irregular  phonetic  spell- 
ing, by  which  e  was  written  for  y. 

One  word,  however,  which  has  been  much  misrepresented 
because  of  a  like  phonetic  variation,  receives  no  attention. 
We  find  happily  often  in  old  books  and  in  the  modern  edi- 
tions of  them,  when  it  is  quite  out  of  place,  and  when  the 
word  intended  is  happely  ;  a  trisyllable  meaning  "  by  hap, 
perchance."  This  was  shown  (for  the  first  time,  I  believe, 
but  that  is  a  trifling  matter)  in  my  edition  of  1857,  with  a 
consequent  regulation  of  the  text.  Upon  this  point,  how- 
ever, the  Cambridge  editors  express  doubt,  retaining  hap- 
pily, to  my  surprise.  Here  is  an  instance  very  pregnant 
and  decisive  from  Marlowe's  "  Jew  of  Malta."  Selim  Caly- 
math,  son  of  the  Grand  Signior,  arrives  at  Malta,  to  de- 
mand ten  years'  tribute  overdue.  The  governor  asks  leave 
to  consult  with  his  knights  ;  whereupon  Calymath  says  to  his 
retinue,  according  to  all  editions,  even  the  last :  — 

Stand  all  aside,  and  let  the  knights  determine; 

And  send  to  keep  the  galleys  under  sail, 

For  hrvppilv  we  shall  not  tarry  here. 

Now  governor  [say]  how  are  you  resolved  ? 

But  here  is  no  assertion  ;  nor  was  the  conjectural  tarrying 


368  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

to  be  happy  or  even  fortunate,  more  or  less.  The  sense  is, 
For  by  hap,  or  perhaps  [i.  e.  if  the  tribute  is  paid]  we  shall 
not  tarry.  Plainly  we  should  read  here,  as  in  many  corre- 
sponding passages  of  Shakespeare  and  contemporary  writ- 
ers, "  For  happely"  etc. 

Section  LXIX.  is  on  the  "  pronunciation  of  o?ie,"  as  to 
which  it  is  said  that  "  one  in  Shakespeare's  time  was  com- 
monly pronounced  un  (a  pronunciation  not  yet  obsolete 
among  the  common  folk),  and  sometimes  apparently  .  .  .  on." 
Nine  pages  are  then  filled  with  examples  and  brief  remarks 
which  are  supposed  to  be  in  point.  These,  however,  with 
perhaps  an  exception  or  two,  only  show  that  one  was  not 
pronounced  wun  ;  that  is,  that  the  w  sound  (u  or  oo)  was  not 
heard  in  it.  This  is  undoubtedly  true ;  and  it  had  been 
shown  in  the  notes  to  my  edition  of  1857.  But  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  the  pronunciation  was  either  un  or  on. 
The  pronunciation  un  among  "  the  common  folk  "  is  merely 
an  example  of  phonetic  decay.  It  is  a  slovenly  pronounc- 
ing of  the  modern  one  (wun). 

One  was  generally  pronounced  in  Shakespeare's  time  just 
as  it  is  written,  with  the  name  sound  of  o,  as  in  bone,  prone, 
lone,  etc.  The  point  seems  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  some 
interest ;  and  I  therefore  quote  here  from  the  "  Memoran- 
dums of  English  Pronunciation  in  the  Elizabethan  Era,"  in 
my  edition  of  1857—1862,  the  following  passage,  by  which 
I  think  that  pronunciation  is  established  :  — 

"One"  is  a  word  the  modern  pronunciation  of  which  is  at  variance  with 
analogy,  to  which  the  best  usage  of  Shakespeare's  day  seems  to  have 
conformed.  Its  modern  pronunciation  is  a  unique  violation  of  a  rule  which 
is  in  force  as  to  this  very  word  in  its  compounds,  "only,"  "alone,"  and 
"atonement,"  the  unaccountable  dropping  of  the  e  in  the  first  of  which 
has  not  even  yet  substituted  its  analogical  pronunciation  on-ly  for  its  ele- 
mentary iine-ly.  (See  the  Notes  on  "only,"  Vol.  II.  p.  184,  and  on 
"atone,"  Vol.  IV.  p.  384.)  That  the  presumption  justified  by  analogy 
and  by  these  facts  is  sustained  by  the  evidence  of  rhymes  and  of  spelling 
no  observant  reader  of  our  ancient  authors  need  be  told.  Such  rhymes  as 
the  following  are  numberless:  one  with  "grone,"  "Seneca's  Ten  Trage- 
dies," 1581,  fol.  184  b;  once  with  "  stones,"  Jb.  fol.  5  and  fol.  21  b;  with 
"bones,"  Ib.  fol.  3-3,  fol.  43  6,  and  fol.  203  ;  ones  with  "bones,"  Ib.  fol. 
62  b,  and  with  "zones,"  Ib.  fol.  34  b;  every  chone  with  "alone,"  Ib. 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  369 

fol.  Ill  ;  one  with  "  foen  "  (plural  of  "foe"),  "Arcadia,"  1605,  p.  228  ; 
with  "owne,"/6.  p.  344  ;  one  with  "known"  and  "mone,"  "Albion's 
England,"  1605,  p.  36  ;  with  "  knowne,"  lb.  p.  324,  with  "  throne,"  p.  283 ; 
with  "loane,"  "  Brown's  Pastorals,"  Vol.  I.  p.  11 ;  with  "  mone,"  "Romeus 
and  Juliet,"  ed.  Collier,  p.  74:  with  "grone,"  "Honour's  Academy," 
Pt.  III.  1610,  p.  94  ;  once  with  "groanes,"  Ib.  p.  123  ;  one  with  "alone," 
Drayton's  "Heroic  Epis.,"  1619,  p.  189;  with  "throne"  and  "alone," 
Daniel's  "Letters  of  Octavia,"  15U9,  st.  14  ;  Avith  "throwne,"  "Pastor 
Fido,"  1647,  p.  28;  and  see  "  Robert  the  Devyll,"  passim.  This  word  was 
even  spelled  own.  See  "Addition  is  the  practicke  to  joync  divers  somes  in 
owne,"  "  Interpreter  of  the  Acadamie,"  1648,  p.  137;  "its  necessary  for 
oicne  that  undertak's  the  building,"  etc.,  Tb.  p.  173.  This  supports  the 
reading,  "A  hundred  mark  is  a  long  ow'n,"  (2  Henry  IV.,  Act  II.  Sc.  1); 
for  in  phonographic  spelling  if  "one"  could  be  spelled  own,  "own"  of 
course  could  be  spelled  one. 

To  this  evidence  must  be  added  that  of  Butler's  Grammar,  1633,  passim. 
Butler  devoted  one  third  of  his  work  to  orthoepy  and  spelling,  and  he  was 
a  rigid  phonographist  in  practice  as  well  as  theory,  writing  tung,  dubble, 
nou,  reddl,  etc.,  with  invariable  uniformity.  He  invented  characters  to 
express  the  compound  and  inflected  sounds  of  vowels,  and  also  the  conso- 
nants in  combination  with  aspirates.  The  e  of  production  or  prolongation 
he  indicates  by  an  inverted  comma  ('),  writing  "made  "  mad',  "like  " 
lik',  " most "  most1,  "ope"  op',  "use  "  us1,  and  the  like;  and  he  (express- 
ing, be  it  observed,  the  new  and  "civil  "  pronunciation.  See  the  note  on 
OO,  p.  249)  invariably  writes  on'  and  on'ly,  as  for  instance,  "C  and  G 
had  each  of  them  anciently  on'  on'ly  sound  which  was  hard,"  p.  14.  If 
the  pronunciation  of  his  day  had  been  wun  or  on,  he  would  have  so 
written. 

In  support  of  examples  like  the  foregoing  is  the  evidence  both  positive 
and  negative  of  Poole's  "  English  Parnassus,"  1657  (but  written  several 
years  before),  where  in  the  "  Alphabet  of  Monosyllables,"  which  "treats  of 
all  rhimes  imaginable  in  English  .  .  .  according  to  their  several  termina- 
tions," we  find  one  set  down  to  rhyme  with  "bone,"  "cone,"  "drone" 
"flown,"  "moan,"  "shone,"  "throne,"  etc.,  while  it  is  omitted  from 
the  tables  under  on  and  un. 

But  countless  as  the  examples  indicative  of  the  analogical  pronunciation 
of  this  word  are,  I  have  noticed  a  few  passages  which  show  that  it  was 
also  pronounced  wane  and  wun  in  the  Elizabethan  period.  These,  how- 
ever, are  chiefly  in  homely  ballads.  See,  for  instance,  "as  icon  on  no 
grounde,"  "  Wyt  £  Science,"  Shale.  Soc.  Ed.  p.  31  ;  "For  darker  there 
hath  been  many  a  wcme,"  "Arise,  Arise,"  Ib.  p.  91  ;  "Ye  be  welcome 
loon  by  wone,"  "In  Praise  of  a  good  Welcome,"  Ib.  p.  Ill  ;  "He  telth 
each  wone,"  "Against  Slander,"  Ib.  p.  114. 

I  think  the  origin  of  the  universal  modern  pronunciation  of  the  word 
may  be  traced  to  the  tendency  in  some  of  the  provincial  dialects  of  Eng- 
land, that  of  Dorsetshire  in  particular,  to  introduce  w  before  o.  Thus 
"hot"  was  pronounced  and  spelled  tvhot,  and  "old"  wold,  and  "home" 
wJiome,  "don't"  divont,  "point"  pwtnt,  "coat"  ciuot,  etc.  This  view 
is  sustained  by  a  provincial  pronunciation  exactly  analogous  to  wun) 
24 


370  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

which  affords  the  author  of  "Tom  Brown's  School  Days"  an  occasion 
for  a  characteristic  passage  :  — 

"  What  is  the  name  of  your  hill,  landlord  ?  " 

"BiAwin-tftwim  Hill,  to  be  sure." 

[READKU.     Sturm? 

AUTHOU      Stone,  stupid  !  the  Blowing  Stone.] 

Here  we  see  a  provincial  corruption,  identical  with  that  which  now  pre- 
vails in  the  pronunciation  of  "  one."  I  believe  that  in  this  pronunciation  we 
have  one  of  not  very  rare  instances  in  which  the  rude  and  provincial  usage 
has  prevailed  over  that  which  is  cultivated,  metropolitan,  and  analogical. 
Its  prevalence  was  probably  owing  to  a  greater  ease  with  which  we  can 
say  "a  wone,"  or  " a  wun  "  than  "a own,"  and  in  the  very  common  use  of 
"an"  instead  of  "a"  before  "  one,"  we  have  yet  farther  evidence  that 
this  word  was  not  generally  pronounced  with  the  w  sound. 

Thus  far  my  time-past  memorandum.  From  other  evi- 
dence at  my  hand,  I  select  two  items.  First,  a  couplet 
showing  that  so  late  as  1670  even  our  once  was  pronounced 
ones :  — 

The  trumpets  she  does  sound  at  ones, 
But  both  of  clean  contrary  tones. 

Hudibras,  Vol.  IV.  p.  70. 

Next  the  following  very  amusing  and  highly  illustrative 
epigram,  which  has  its  point  from  this  very  pronuncia- 
tion :  — 

A   SPELL  FOR  JONE    [jOAx]. 

If  I  am  I,  and  thou  art  one, 

Tell  me,  sweet  wench,  how  spellst  thou  Jone? 

I  '11  tell  you,  sir,  and  tell  you  true ; 

For  I  am  I,  and  I  am  one,1 
So  I  can  spell  Jone  without  you,* 

And  spelling  so,  can  lye  alone. 

Ancient  Ballads  and  Broadsides,  p.  191. 

Section  C.  is  "  On  omissions  in  consequence  of  absorp- 
tion." Observe  the  title.  It  is  collective  ;  it  classifies  ;  it 
coordinates ;  it  generalizes  ;  and  therefore  seems  attractive 
and  imposing  to  some  persons.  The  first  example  is  the 
foUowing  from  "  King  Henry  VIII.,"  Act  I.  Sc.  2  :  — 

Tongues  spit  their  duties  out,  and  cold  hearts  freeze 

Allegiance  in  them :  their  curses  now,  etc. 

As  to  which  it  is  said,  "  Read,  metri  gratia,  — 

freeze 
Allegiance  in  them  :  that  their  curses  now,  etc. 

i  I.  e.,  i  stands  for  one.  2  /.  e.,  without  u  or  w. 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  371 

Not  so,  surely.  Metri  gratia  !  Mr.  Walker  failed  to  per- 
ceive that  allegiance  is  a  quadrisyllable  ;  which  indeed  it 
is,  almost,  in  our  daily  speech  now.  The  next  is  the  follow- 
ing from  u  Antony  and  Cleopatra,"  Act  IV.  Sc.  2  :  — 

I  wish  I  could  be  made  so  many  men  ; 
And  all  of  you  clapp'd  up  together  ia 
An  Antony,  that  I  might  do  you  service 
So  good  as  you  have  done. 

The  gods  forbid ! 

It  is  asked,  "  Does  not  the  sense  imperatively  require, 
4  So  good  as  y*  have  done  me?' '  Not  at  all.  The  sense 
is  perfect,  like  the  rhythm,  as  any  one  may  see.  Then  we 
have  the  following  from  "  Hamlet,"  Act  II.  Sc.  2  :  — 

Well,  we  shall  sift  him.  —  Welcome,  my  good  friends!  — 

with  this  comment :  "  He  is  addressing  the  ambassadors  for 
the  lirst  time  after  their  return  from  Norway.  Unde  my  ? 
It  is  not  in  the  folio.  I  think  the  occasion  absolutely  de- 
mands, '  Welcome  home,  good  friends.'  "  But  Shakespeare, 
according  to  the  best  evidence,  did  not  think  so.  For 
Walker's  editor,  Mr.  Lettsom,  candidly  adds,  in  a  note,  that 
the  my  is  from  the  quartos.  And,  by  the  way,  the  editor 
is  obliged  not  unfrequently  thus  to  set  his  author  right. 
The  section,  which  fills  twenty-one  pages,  swarms  with  mis- 
apprehensions, of  which  these  are  examples. 

Section  II.  in  Vol.  I.  is  on  "  Passages  in  Shakespeare  in 
which  a  compound  epithet  or  participle  has  been  resolved 
into  two  simple  epithets  or  an  adverb  and  an  epithet,"  etc. 
Of  this  the  first  example  cited  is  from  "  Richard  II.,"  Act 
III.  Sc.  2:  — 

As  a  long-parted  mother  with  her  child 

Plays  fondly  with  her  tears  and  smiles  in  meeting, 

So  weeping  smiling  greet  I  thee  my  earth. 

"  Surely,"  we  are  told,  "  Shakespeare  wrote,  more  suo,  weep- 
ing-smiling" Why  ?  For  no  good  reason.  Indeed  noth- 
ing is  gained  and  much  is  lost  in  clearness,  in  strength,  and 
in  the  beauty  of  sobriety  by  such  compounding  of  participles, 
each  one  of  which  presents  a  distinct  idea,  —  in  this  case 


372  STUDIES  IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

two  opposed  ideas,  the  opposition  and  the  distinctness  of 
which  must  be  preserved  to  express  contrast.  Epithets  of 
quality  or  action  are  compounded  when  the  first  would 
otherwise  qualify  the  person  or  thing  to  which  they  pertain 
in  a  manner  unintended,  and  often  absurd.  Thus,  in  this 
very  speech  of  Bolingbroke's  in  the  first  line  quoted  above, 
long-parted  is  compounded,  because  long  applies  to  the  part- 
ing, and  because  otherwise  we  should  have  a  long  mother 
parted  from  her  child.  And  so  a  few  lines  below,  "  heavy- 
gaited  toads."  But  "  weeping-smiling  "  is  in  the  style  of  a 
sweet  girl  graduate. 

The  next  example  is  :  — 

A  strange  tongue  makes  ray  cause  more  strange,  suspicious,  — 
Henry  VIII.,  Act  III.  Sc.  I. 

with  the  comment :  "  It  is  impossible  Shakespeare  could 
have  perpetrated  such  an  awkwardness.  Read  strange-sus- 
picious" The  next :  — 

Or  if  that  surly  spirit,  melancholy, 

Had  bnk'd  the  blood,  and  made  it  heavy,  thick, 

Which  else  runs  tickling  up  and  down  the  veins. 

King  John,  Act  III.  Sc.  3. 

Here  we  are  told  to  read  " heavy-thick"  But,  as  in  Queen 
Katherine's  speech  she  means  to  say  that  a  strange  tongue 
makes  the  cause  of  a  stranger  or  foreigner  (as  she  was)  seem 
more  strange,  and  adds  suspicion  to  it,  so  King  John  means 
to  suppose  that  melancholy  not  only  made  the  blood  so 
thick,  but  so  heavy,  that  it  could  not  run  freely.1  In  like 
manner  Mr.  Walker  would  have  us  read,  "  'Tis  pity  she  's 
not  honest-honourable"  and  "  bloody-fiery"  "  honest-true" 
and  so  forth  through  thirty-four  pages  !  This  is  mostly 
waste  paper. 

Section  XXVII.  in  Vol.  I.  is  headed  "  Peculiar  construc- 
tion with  the  adjective."     Of  this  the  first  example  given  is 

Othello' s  — 

This  fellow  's  of  exceeding  honesty, 

And  knows  all  qualities  with  a  learn'd  spirit 

Of  human  dealings,  — 

Act  III.,  Sc.  3. 

1  My  own  edition  has  heavy-thick,  by  accident.    It  was  corrected  when 
it  was  discovered. 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  373 

where  it  is  suggested  that  the  construction  is  "  a  spirit 
learned  of  [i.  e.,  in]  human  dealings."  Granted  for  the 
moment,  this  is  yet  a  strange  example  of  a  peculiar  con- 
struction with  the  adjective  ;  as  in  that  case  "  learned  "  is 
purely  verbal  in  sense,  and  as  perfect  an  example  as  possible 
of  the  definite  participle.  So  in  King  Lear's  — 
Thou  perjur'd  and  thou  simular  man  of  virtue,  — 

we  are  told  that  we  must  construe  "  thou  man  simular  of  vir- 
tue ;  "  and  in  "  King  Henry  VI.,"  — 

Bring  forth  that  fatal  screech-owl  to  our  house,  — 

we  must  read,  in  mind  at  least,  "  that  screech-owl  fatal  to 
our  house."  No,  —  acute,  but  over-subtle  and  over-special 
critic.  In  all  these  cases  it  was  the  writer's  purpose  —  un- 
conscious, intuitive,  and  influenced  by  the  free  stage  style  of 
his  day,  to  present  a  single  compounded  idea.  For  instance, 
in  "  Henry  VI.,"  not  to  say  "  that  owl  that  screeches  and 
that  has  always  been  fatal  to  our  house,"  but  to  have  the 
modifying  epithet  "  fatal "  apply  to  both  the  owl  and  the 
house  ;  almost  as  if  we  should  print  "  fatal-screech-owl-to- 
our-house."  So  in  the  passage  from  "King  Lear."  If 
Shakespeare  had  wished  to  present  a  simple  idea,  he  would 
surely  have  written 

Thou  perjur'd  man  and  simular  of  virtue. 

But  he  wished  to  present  two  men,  the  perjured  man,  and 
the  man  who  is  simular  of  virtue  ;  and  he  therefore  repeated 
his  pronoun,  with  a  conjunction,  "  and  thou ; "  but  he  also 
wished  his  substantive,  man,  to  fulfil  its  substantive  func- 
tion for  both,  and  therefore  he  would  not  write,  even  if 
rhythm  had  permitted,  — 

Thou  perjured,  and  thou  man  simular  of  virtue;  — 

by  which  construction  perjured  would  have  been  entirely  cut 
off  from  man.  This  he  did  not  cogitatively  and  with  delib- 
erately constructive  purpose,  but  instinctively,  in  the  free 
way  in  which  playwrights  then  wrote  ;  he,  freest  and  most  ab- 
solute playwright  of  them  all.  It  was  his  way  of  "  bombast- 


374  STUDIES   IN   SHAKESPEARE. 

ing  out  a  blank  verse."  There  are  twenty  pages  of  such 
suggestion j  almost  wholly  futile. 

Of  Walker's  general  ability  in  apprehension  of  Shake- 
speare's meaning  and  in  suggestion  as  to  the  text,  see  these 
few  examples  of  many  which  I  checked  in  the  margin  of 
my  copy  when  the  book  first  came  out,  since  when  until  now 
I  have  not  looked  at  it. 

Hope  is  a  curtail  dog  in  some  affairs. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Act  II.  Sc.  1. 

On  which,  this  amazing  comment :  "  Was  the  name  Hope 
ever  given  to  a  dog  in  those  days  ?  "  —  as  to  which  one  must 
be  dumb  ;  except  perhaps  to  say  that  it  rivals  Dr.  Schmidt's 
deep  and  dreadful  organ  (in  the  "  Tempest ")  which  "  would 
have  been  unable  to  pronounce  a  name." 

"  If  her  breath  were  as  terrible  as  her  terminations." 
(Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  Act  II.  Sc.  1.)  Here  we  are 
told  that  terminations  is  "  palpably  wrong,"  and  Mr. 
Walker's  editor  adds  that  the  word  "never  occurs  else- 
where in  Shakespeare."  What  matter?  What  does  that 
signify  ?  This  is  the  narrowest  of  views,  the  most  futile  of 
objections.  It  should  never  be  mentioned  —  thought  of. 
As  I  have  had  occasion  to  say  before,  if  Shakespeare  needed 
a  word  but  once  he  would  use  it  but  once.  This  is  an  in- 
stance. Termination  in  the  sense  of  "  phrase  "  was  not 
common  in  his  day  ;  but  it  was  in  use. 

On  it  in  Queen  Constance's  speech  in  "  King  John,"  — 
Do  child,  go  to  it  grandam,  child,  — 

it  is  remarked  :  "I  suspect  this  is  merely  an  old  form  for  its. 
The  old  poets  certainly  employed  it  now  and  then  —  prob- 
ably only  under  peculiar  circumstances  —  where  we  should 
use  its."  Mr.  Walker  then,  with  all  his  reading,  so  "  awfully 
arrayed "  upon  slightest  provocation,  supposed  it  to  be 
"  merely  an  old  form,"  which  was  "  probably  used  only  un- 
der peculiar  circumstances,"  writing  thus  of  a  word  which 
did  not  exist  when  "  King  John  "  was  written.  Mr.  Lettsom 
says,  "  See  on  this  point  Professor  Craik's  Philological  Com- 


GLOSSARIES  AND   LEXICONS.  375 

mentary  on  Julius  Caesar."  But  in  my  edition  of  the  "  Com- 
edies," the  text  (except  in  one  instance,  which  escaped  my 
attention)  had  already  been  regulated,  in  its  since  accepted 
form,  as  to  it,  its,  and  it 's,  and  the  old  usage  explained. 

The  was  also  used  with  the  possessive  force  of  its  before 
the  latter  came  into  vogue,  as  was  remarked  in  my  edition 
of  1857.  For  example  :  — 

And  I  pray  you  (quoth  Aliena)  if  your  robes  were  off  what  mettal  are 
you  made  of  that  you  are  so  satyricai  against  women  V  is  it  not  a  foule 
bird  that  defiles  the  own  nest?  Lodge,  Euphues,  Golden  Legacie.  • 

Here  the  modern  editor  makes  the  mistake  of  reading  "  his 
own  nest,"  with  the  marginal  note  "  The  in  the  text." 

In  "  King  Henry  IV.,"  as  to  Mistress  Doll  Tear-Sheet, 
Walker  says  that  "  Coleridge's  correction  —  Tear-Street 
ought  to  have  been  made  long  ago.  .  .  .  The  corruption 
must  have  taken  place  early  ;  for  the  name  Doll  Tear-Sheet 
occurs  in  Jonson's  '  Silent  Woman/  "  Of  Walker  and  Cole- 
ridge I  have  elsewhere  had  occasion  to  remark  that  as  to  the 
right  apprehension  of  Shakespeare  they  not  unfrequently 
show  that  they  are  arcades  ambo.  Ecce  signum. 

"  Saba  was  never  more  covetous,"  etc.  As  to  which  — 
"  How  far  is  it  desirable  to  retain  Shakespeare's  ancient 
spelling  in  such  names  ?  "  Shakespeare's  ancient  spelling  ! 
Mr.  Walker  was  a  scholar ;  had  he  forgotten  his  Septuagint  ? 
"  K<u  j3ao-iXia-(ra  ^aySa  rjKovae  TO  oVo/xa  ^"Ao/>uov,"  Basileion, 
Chap.  X.  1,  and  passim.  And  see  also  many  instances  of 
this  form  in  the  works  of  Shakespeare's  predecessors  and 
contemporaries  ;  as  for  example  :  — 

As  wise  as  Sabci,  or  as  beautiful 

As  was  bright  Lucifer  before  his  fall. 

Indeed,  in  our  early  literature  Saba  was  the  commoner 
form  of  the  name. 

For  "  that  runaway's  eyes  may  wink,"  Mr.  Walker  says 
"  Read  Cynthia's  eyes,  etc.  Possibly,  indeed,  the  word  may 
have  been  written  by  mistake  without  a  capital  —  cinthiaes 
...  which  would  render  the  error  more  easy.  A  writer  in 
*  The  Gentleman's  Magazine  '  proposes,  '  That  Luna's  eyes/ 


376  STUDIES   IN  SHAKESPEARE. 

etc.,  and  adds,  '  We  have  in  "  Pericles  "  the  very  same  ex- 
pression, — 

This  by  the  eye  of  Cynthia  hath  she  vow'd.' 

This  latter  passage  might  have  led  him  to  the  true  reading." 
In  the  names  of  Shakespeare  and  common-sense,  what  have 
the  two  passages  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet  "  and  "  Pericles  " 
to  do  with  each  other  ?  What  is  the  relation  between  them  ? 
What  the  likeness,  other  than  that  there  is  an  "  eye  "  in 
both  ?  O  Fluellen,  your  salmons,  your  salmons  !  This  con- 
fidently produced  emendation  is  not  only  one  of  the  very  worst 
of  the  many  needlessly  proposed  in  this  passage,  but,  what 
is  of  most  importance,  it  is  noteworthy  for  its  manifestation 
of  a  thorough  misapprehension  of  the  passage,  that  need 
by  no  means  be  exhibited  even  in  elaborating  a  conjectural 
reading  which  on  the  whole  is  quite  unacceptable. 

By  this  time  I  think  it  must  be  pretty  plain  to  my  read- 
ers that  what  with  articles  of  twenty  and  thirty  pages,  like 
those  I  have  just  remarked  upon,  and  others  that  merely 
suggest  what  had  been  already  taken  into  the  text  or  adopted 
as  interpretation,  and  others  which  are  of  too  trivial  a  na- 
ture for  remark,  Mr.  Walker's  "  Critical  Examination  "  is 
not  a  work  of  much  value  or  interest  to  the  critical  student 
of  Shakespeare's  text ;  certainly  not  one  which  should  be 
treated  with  any  deference.  Its  real  worth  is  shown,  as  I 
have  before  remarked,  by  the  fact  that,  although  it  was  pub- 
lished twenty-four  years  ago,  it  has  had  scarcely  any  effect 
upon  the  text.  Even  Mr.  Dyce,  although  he  is  led  by  his 
friendly  consideration  for  Walker's  editor  to  refer  to  the 
book  much  oftener  than  he  had  need,  adopts  little  or  noth- 
ing from  it.  When  Walker  ventures  into  textual  emenda- 
tion he  nearly  always  goes  astray  in  an  alarming  manner. 
And  yet  he  is  the  author  of  one  of  the  happiest  restorations 
in  the  received  text :  —  "  Her  infinite  cunning  and  her -mod- 
ern grace,"  for  "  Her  insuite  comming,"  etc.,  of  the  folio 
(All's  WeU  That  Ends  Well.  Act.  V.  Sc.  3),  which  I 
believe  I  was  the  first  to  welcome  publicly.1  If,  like  one 
l  Shakespeare's  Scholar,  1854, 


GLOSSARIES  AND  LEXICONS.  377 

of  his  earliest  critics,  we  must  say,  "  Very  often  we  find  our- 
selves differing  from  Mr.  Walker  on  readings  and  inter- 
pretations," with  him  we  must  also  add,  "  but  we  seldom 
differ  from  him  without  respect  for  his  scholarship  and 
care,"  —  scholarship  and  care,  but  not  insight,  as  to  either 
thought  or  language. 


INDEX. 


ABHOR,  315. 

About,  316. 

Abraham  Cupid,  317. 

Achilles,  42. 

Acknowledge,  318. 

Adagia,  1G3. 

Add,  318. 

Addison,  310. 

Adonis's  gardens,  296. 

Adriana,  12. 

.Eneas,  43. 

Agamemnon,  43. 

Aguize,  319. 

Ainsworth's  Dictionary.  397. 

Aire.  367. 

Albion's  England,  398. 

Albany,  197. 

Allan  Cunningham,  334. 

Allegiance,  371. 

All 's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  8,  46. 

An  authority,  362. 

An-hungry,  315. 

A,  or  An,  used  for  one,  314. 

Anne  Page,  241. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  51,  237. 

Apophthegms  of  Erasmus,  294. 

Apply,  316. 

Arcadia,  Sir  Philip  Sidney's,  213. 

Archaic  and  Pro.  Dictionary,  350. 

Archery,  319. 

Arden,  forest  of,  27,  239,  261. 

Ariel,  230,  260. 

Arrivance,  319. 

Art  and  act,  365. 

Arthur,  29. 

Ascaunt,  319. 

Asaemblance,  320. 

Ask,  320. 

As  You  Like  It,  7,  36,  210,  256,  260. 

As  you  have  done,  371. 

Athens,  127. 

Attaint,  320. 

Ay,  320. 

BACON,  Miss  Delia,  180. 
Bacon-Shakespeare  Craze,  the,  151. 
Bacon  (smoked),  321. 
Bailey,  348. 
Bait,  321. 
Barbary,  102. 
Barren  labors,  313. 
Batten,  322. 


Bawd-born,  322. 

Beadle,  323. 

Bearward,  323. 

Beatrice,  10,  37,  248. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  169,  258. 

Beethoven,  23. 

Beeth,  63. 

Behove,  323. 

Bends  adoruings,  318. 

Bent,  323. 

Benedick,  10,  37. 

Ben  Jonson,  153,  167,  169,  215,  352. 

Bermudas,  the,  128. 

Bevel,  323. 

Bezonian,  319. 

Bible,  7,  299,  315. 

Billingsgate,  324. 

Birone,  10,  37. 

Blackstone,  315. 

Blue-eyed,  324. 

Bodykins,  324. 

Body,  324. 

Bohemia,  32. 

Bone,  324. 

Boswell's  Malone,  184. 

Bottom,  15,  260. 

Bow-hand,  234. 

Brabantio,  101. 

British  Museum,  154. 

Brooke,  Arthur,  162,  175. 

Buckle,  316. 

Bung,  326. 

Buoy'd,  201. 

Burial  with  head  to  the  East,  299. 

Buttery,  326. 

Buz,  326. 

CALDECOTE,  333. 

Caliban.  43,  230. 

Cambridge  editors,  21, 184,  333,  355. 

Cambridge  edition,  280. 

Canker-blossom,  327. 

Capell,  333. 

Capulets,  174. 

Carlyle,  305. 

Carve,  327. 

Case  of  Hamlet  the  Younger,  78. 

Cassio,  105,  208. 

Castle,  328. 

Celia,  127. 

Cervantes,  291. 

Chappell,  200. 


380 


INDEX. 


Charles!.,  258. 

Charles  II. ,  250,  360. 

Cheapen,  288. 

Chuttes,  337. 

Cinderella,  227. 

Clarendon  Press,  51,  53. 

Clarke,  Rev.  Wm.  George,  184,  280. 

Clamour,  294. 

Claudius,  78. 

Clear-stories,  329. 

Clown's  song,  212. 

Clubs,  Shakespeare,  55. 

Cock-a-hoop,  308. 

Coleridge,  54. 

Colours,  330. 

Collier,  191,  333. 

Commentators,  the,  186. 

Comedy  of  Errors,  10,  14, 17,  27, 40, 153. 

Comparisons  are  odorous,  290. 

Concordance,  Mrs.  H.  H.  Furness,  300. 

Condell,  Henry,  153. 

Constance,  29. 

Consistency,  thou  art  a  jewel,  152. 

Consummation,  329. 

Contention  of  York  and  Lancaster,  21, 

171. 

Contrive,  316. 
Control,  364. 
Cordelia,  212,  219. 
Coriolanus,  51. 
Corneille,  260. 
Corni  contra  croci.,  156. 
Cornwall,  213,  220. 
Cotgrave,  350. 

Cowden-Clarke,  Mrs.,  158, 172,  300. 
Creature,  366. 
Cresset,  330. 
Crestless,  330. 
Crocodile,  335. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  258. 
Cruels  else  subscribe,  196. 
Curfew,  330. 
Curiosity  in  nature,  188. 
Curtle-axe,  245. 
Cymbeline,  236. 

D  ANBURY-CROSS,  158. 

Dane,  The,  77,  96. 

Daughter,  204, 

Daywoman,  331. 

Delius,  Dr.,  173. 

Denmark,  77. 

Desdemona,  101. 

Detest,  364. 

Diana,  145. 

Divorce,  331. 

Dixon,  Hepworth,  154. 

Document,  287. 

Do,  de,  331. 

Doll  Tear-Sheet,  358,  375. 

Don  Giovanni,  54. 

Don  Quixote,  30,  291,  309. 

Dote,  331. 

Double-henned,  331. 

Doublet,  245. 

Dover  cliff,  218. 

Dowle,  332. 

Dram  of  eale,  283.. 


Dryden,  355. 
Duncan,  King,  63. 
Duusinaiie,  73. 

Dyce,  Rev.  Alexander,  280, 283, 297, 317, 
323,  336. 

EDEN,  296. 

Edgar,  200. 

Edmund,  200. 

Edinburgh  Review,  194,  282. 

Eight  wild  boars,  326. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  15,  30,  142,  153,  173. 

Elizabethan,  159,  169,  258,  312. 

Elsinore,  80. 

English  idiom,  326. 

English  pronunciation,  342,  368. 

Entitled,  332. 

Entreatuient,  333. 

Erasmus,  159,  163,  294. 

Essay  on  Authorship  of  Henry  VI.,  21. 

Etjtistificala.  etc.,  ICO. 

Eternal,  333. 

Euphues,  10,  49. 

Every-day  English,  332. 

Eysel,  335. 

FARTHINGALE,  242. 
Fa,  sol,  la,  mi,  200. 
Falstaff,  29,  30,  31,  250. 
Fatal  screech  owl,  373. 
Faust,  157. 
Fencer,  335. 
Fetch,  335. 

Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  278. 
First  play  to  read,  7. 
Figaro,  54. 

Fleay,  Rev.  F.  G.,  22,  45. 
Fleance,  73. 
Florio,  329,  352. 

Florentine  Arithmetician,  The,  102. 
Fly  by  an  eagle,  327. 
Fool,  204,  230,  260. 
Folio,  the  first,  187, 189,  365. 
Foruscites,  330. 

Formularies  and  Elegancies,  166. 
Forth,  292. 
Frame,  336. 

Friends  in  Council,  137. 
Full,  336. 

Furness,  Dr.  Horace  Howard,  183,  185, 
196,  317,  333,  336. 

GANYMEDE,  146,  242,  249. 

Garrick,  226. 

Gascoigne,  169, 170,  172. 

Genesis,  317. 

Geruth  or  Gertrude,  78. 

German  commentators,  304. 

Gervinus,  54,  137. 

Glossary,  Dyce's,  285,  327,  355. 

Globe  edition,  301. 

Globe  Theatre,  214,  216. 

Good-morrow,  167,  173. 

Good-bye,  Good-night,  169. 

Goneril,  193. 

Gorbellied,  336. 

Gossip,  337. 

Grammarian,  313. 


INDEX. 


381 


Greene,  Robert,  23,  175,  282,  349. 
Green  one  red,  325. 
Green  wit,  292. 
Grimalkin,  1G2. 
Guildenstern,  80. 
Gyves,  337. 

HALLIWELL-PHILLIPS,  350. 

Halliwell,  319,  333. 

Hamlet,  3G,  50,  78,  237,  259. 

Hamnet,  29. 

Hand  in  hand,  338. 

Happily,  367. 

Harleian  collection,  154. 

Harkness,  22. 

Hats  on,  293. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  180. 

Head,  338. 

Heat,  338. 

Heavy  thick,  372. 

Heminge,  153. 

Henry  IV.,  8,  29,  38,  171,  210. 

Henry  V.,  36. 

Henry  VI.,  5,  21,  23,  27. 

Heywood,  169. 

Historical  plays,  19,  26. 

Hob,  339. 

Hole,  339. 

Holinshed,  213,  216. 

Homer,  151,  187. 

Hope,  374. 

Horatio,  80. 

Howell's  letters,  296. 

Hudson,  190,  192. 

Hymen,  149. 

IAGO,  106,  228. 
Iphigenia,  175. 
Imogen,  179,  235. 
Ingredience,  363. 
Infernal,  334. 
Infinite  cunning,  376. 
Insanity,  Lear's,  224. 
Interpolations,  206. 
Intrinse,  192. 
In  the  quill,  297. 
Irish,  1G3,  332. 
Is  instead  of  have,  323. 
It,  its,  374. 

JAMES  I.,  153,  242. 
Jaques,  133,  261. 
Jealousy  of  women,  12. 
Joan,  a  spell  for,  570. 
Johnson  and  Stevens,  184. 
Julius  Cassar,  51. 
Jupiter  symphony,  54. 
Jutland,  77. 

KARES,  OTTO,  305. 

Kean,  Mrs.  Charles,  256. 

Kemble,  John,  226. 

Kent,  192. 

Kersey,  348. 

King  Lear,  the  Text,  183. 

King  Lear,  Plot  and  Personages,  210. 

King  John,  26,  29. 

Knight,  333. 


Knight's  Pictorial  Edition,  21. 
Koblmg's  Englische  Studien,  305. 

LACONISMUS,  163. 

Lady  Gruach's  Husband,  The,  58. 

Laertes,  86. 

Land-damn,  339. 

Laid  on  with  a  trowel,  308. 

Lapsed,  308. 

Learning  for  beauty,  292. 

Leonatus,  236. 

Lettsom,  Mr.,  327. 

Lilly,  John,  10,  47. 

Little  quill,  311. 

Littleton,  328. 

Lockhart,  304. 

Lodge's  Eu.  Golden  Legacie,  304,  315. 

London,  13,  20,  152,  243. 

Long  ears,  290. 

Love's  Labour  's  Won,  46. 

Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  5,  9, 11, 17, 27, 34, 

46. 
Lucrece,  8. 

MACAOLAY,  T.  B.,  154. 

Macbeth,  63. 

Macdonwald,  63. 

Malcolm,  65. 

Malone,  184,  333. 

Mallory's  King  Arthur,  329. 

Marcellus,  92. 

Manners  and  customs,  293. 

Marlowe,  5, 21,23,  210,  309,311, 353, 367. 

Measure  for  Measure,  8,  47,  54,  210. 

Mediterranean,  102. 

Mephistopheles,  157. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  8,  32,  34,  210. 

Meres,  Francis,  46,  176. 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  8, 30,  31. 

Michael  Angelo,  23. 

Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  10, 17, 24,27- 

Middleton,  350. 

Mien,  339. 

Milton,  226,  296. 

Minerva,  309. 

Mine  ease  in  mine  inn,  295. 

Minotaur,  the,  127. 

Mirrored  there,  298. 

Moberly,  196. 

Modern  editors,  283,  325,  333,  339, 340, 

355,  363. 
Moliere,  260. 
Montagues,  174. 
Montaigne's  Essays,  292. 
Moral  plays,  230. 
MOSG  in  the  chine,  340. 
Moth,  291. 
Mozart,  23,  54. 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  8,  36,  210. 
My,  340. 

NAG,  340. 

Napping,  340. 

Native,  340. 

Ne,  341. 

Necessity's  sharp  pinch,  195. 

Neither  too  heavy,  etc.,  162. 

Nestor,  93. 


382 


INDEX. 


New  Testament,  159,  160. 
New-fangled,  341. 
Nolite  dare,  etc.,  158. 
Noseless,  341. 

Note  on  Mr.  Walker's  Critical  Examina- 
tion, 364. 

Nourriture  passe  nature,  165. 
Novum  Organum,  153,  182. 
Norway,  77. 

OBEBON,  127. 

Obsolete  words,  303. 

O'ergalled,  341. 

O'er-perch,  341. 

Offal,  342. 

Old-Castle,  328. 

Olivia,  342. 

Once  in  a  month,  314. 

One,  342,  368. 

On  the  Acting  of  lago,  258. 

On  Reading  Shakespeare,  1. 

Ooze,  342. 

Ophelia,  86. 

Organ-pipe,  342. 

Orlando,  129,  248. 

Oswald,  192. 

O  the,  165. 

Othello,  12,  50,  102,  235. 

Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  328. 

PALLADIS  TAMIA,  46, 176. 

Papers,  the,  298. 

Parcel-gilt,  350. 

Path,  363. 

Peele,  George,  5,  21,  23,  282. 

Pennsylvania,  man-of-war,  58. 

Pericles,  5,  165. 

Perugine  Madonna,  10. 

Persius,  169. 

Pfeffer,  Dr.,  306. 

Philological  and  Critical  Nonsense,  358. 

Philologer,  362. 

Pilgrim's  Progress,  7. 

Pitch,  pight,  309. 

Placket,  342. 

Plagiarisms,  22. 

Plato,  279,  299. 

Plautus,  10,  163. 

Plays  of  first  period,  1. 

Plays  of  second  period,  19. 

Plays  of  third  period,  38. 

Plays  to  pass  over,  4. 

Plutarch,  North's,  228,  318. 

Polack,  304. 

Pott,  Mrs.  Henry,  154. 

Praise  of  woman,  11. 

Precious  square,  189. 

Pregnant,  350. 

Prima  facie,  161. 

Prince  Hal,  29. 

Procul  o  procul,  etc. ,  159. 

Proper  names,  365. 

Puritans,  258. 

Puss  in  Boots,  102. 

Putnam,  George  P.,  180. 

Putter  out,  and  point-blank,  311. 

QUICKLY,  Mrs.,  315, 


RABELAIS,  Urquhart's,  339, 357. 

Racine,  260. 

Rachel,  265. 

Raphael,  10,  23. 

Reade,  Charles,  164. 

Readings  without  comment,  281. 

Regan,  189. 

Reid  and  Steevens,  184. 

Remember  thy  courtesy,  351. 

Revolting  truths,  210. 

Richard  II.,  25. 

Richard  III.,  22,  23,  25,  27. 

Ring  of  gold,  etc.,  163. 

Riper  than  a  mulberry,  164. 

Rolfe,  317,  333,  336. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  7,  8,  34,  39,  167,  210. 

Rome,  173. 

Rosalind,  127,  236. 

Rosaline,  10,  37. 

Rowe,  194,  259. 

Runaways,  353,  375. 

SABA,  356,  375. 

Sack,  296. 

Salvini,  262. 

Samphire,  204. 

Satan,  157. 

Saul  of  Tarsus,  178. 

Scandinavians,  78. 

Schluter,  54. 

Schmidt,  Dr.  Alexander,  190,  196,  300. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  1. 

Seal,  354. 

Self-slaughter,  299. 

Sell  one  a  bargain,  322. 

Semper  virgines  furia,  159. 

Seneca,  163. 

Shakespeare  Lexicon,  300,  302. 

Shakespeare's  Scholar,  287,  327,  376. 

Shafton,  Sir  Piercie,  49,  285. 

Sheep  biter,  310. 

Shent,  354. 

Shenstone,  355 

Shoal,  321. 

Sickel,  356. 

Sight,  298. 

Simular  man,  374. 

Sincere,  356. 

Skin  between  the  brows,  355. 

Slave,  303. 

Sleaded,  304. 

Social  life,  29. 

Soldi  qui  luise,  etc.,  164. 

Sonnets,  the,  8,  176.     • 

Southampton,  Earl  of,  153. 

Spedding,  James,  154. 

Spenser,  155,  295,  309,  355. 

Squeaking  Cleopatra,  325. 

Stage  Rosalinds,  233. 

Step-mother,  357. 

Strange  suspicions,  372. 

Stratford,  153. 

Study,  357. 

Superfluous  glosses,  286,  289,  301,  302. 

Suicide,  299. 

Supreme  excellence,  20. 

Swift,  344. 

Swits  and  spurs,  356. 


INDEX. 


383 


TALE  OF  THE  FOREST  OP  ARDKN.  127. 

Tate,  184. 

Tempest,  the,  7,  27,  61. 

Tender-hefted,  193,  289. 

Terminology,  312. 

Terminations,  374. 

Textual  emendation,  375. 

Theatre  Francais,  2t>0 

Theobald,  355. 

The,  358,  375. 

Thersites,  43. 

Tidy,  358. 

Timon  of  Athens,  44,  210. 

Titus  Andronicus,  5,  153. 

Tom  Brown's  School-days,  306. 

Touchstone,  132,  231. 

^Toward,  358. 

Tragedy  of  Duke  of  York,  21. 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  8,  35,  36,  39. 

Trunk  hose,  245. 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  18,  24,  31. 

Tybalt,  161. 

ULIUCI,  54. 
Ulysses,  40. 
Uncurrent,  294. 
Upton,  192,  199. 

VARIORUM,  the,  184. 


Varlet,  360. 


Venice,  101,  266. 
Venus  and  Adonis,  8. 
Venus  of  Melos,  2,  235. 
Vere,  time  of,  295. 
Vice,  230. 
Virgin  crants,  287. 
Viol,  350. 
Viola,  248. 

WALKER,  334. 

Want,  288. 

Warburton,  190. 

Washington  Navy  Yard,  58. 

Waverly  novels,  7,  343. 

Weeping-smiling,  371. 

Well-a-near,  361. 

Where,  361. 

Whittle,  331. 

Wince  or  winch,  361. 

Windlaces,  287. 

Winter's  Tale,  8,  27,  51. 

Wordsworth,  177. 

Wright,  William  Aldis,  52, 184, 190, 194, 


ZANY,  289. 


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